Warm Bittersweet Mousse

With a thesis to complete, I've not had the time to blog about chocolate as I would like. I have a shlew of stories to tell about my month long chocolate travels in New Zealand and Australia last month. The chocolates "down under" were fabulous and I have the pictures to prove it. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to post and comment on the 100+ shots I took, but I am getting there.

For Christmas I received Alice Medrich's book, Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate. It has been an excellent study break and a wonderfully inspiring book. I've never really baked with real chocolate before. My experience cooking with chocolate has been for the most part, "Open box and bake." That is until today.

With my thesis writing coming along, I decided I deserved a break and decided to try making my first chocolate dessert from scratch. It would be my reward for working hard. And besides, the ramekins and candy thermometer I had ordered arrived yesterday. Alice had inspired and now, Alice would be my mentor as I attempted to create her Warm Bittersweet Mousse.

Mousse, which simply means "foam," is a classic French dessert, which, in its most elemental form, is elegantly smooth and creamy, with all its flavor coming from the chocolate. While a French chocolate mousse can be a dense foam or a light foam, it is definitely not the overly sweetened chocolate pudding-like, gelatinous "dessert-in-a-dish" which it has become in America.

I've never really been a big mousse lover because of that, but after the awful chocolate mousse we had on our New Zealand cruise last month, I knew I wanted to experience the pure beauty of an excellent one. I also had all 5 ingredients that the recipe required, and I knew I needed to use up the half-bag of Ghirardelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips leftover from the chocolate silk pie I made for New Year's Eve. Thus, with cookbook in hand (or actually, the cookbook was on the table), I began.

Rather than tackle a traditional mousse based on the original French style, I decided to go with the warmed version because it required less egg skill. "Albert's Mousse," as the "non-baked" version is called, calls for a constant stirring of eggs in a bowl, on a skillet of "not-even-simmering" water so to prevent them from scrambling. I knew that for me the risk of chocolate scrambled eggs would be there. Thus the "baked" version seemed more promising as the oven would heat the eggs and solve the salmonella situation.

Thankfully, Alice's recipe was easy to follow, for even a beginner like me. When the smell of the 6 ounces of chocolate began to melt into the 1/4 cup of coffee on my home made double-boiler, I knew this was going to be a delicious delight, especially after the 1 1/2 tablespoons of brandy was added and I licked the spoon. The 3 eggs and 3 tablespoons of sugar did beat up into a "softly whipped cream" after 4 minutes on high. And as 1/4 of the eggs were gently folded into the chocolate a little at a time, I was surprised at how simple this was. The hardest part was scooping the mousse into the ramekins without making a mess, and making all 6 of them even.

Once the ramekins were filled, I felt like I was home free as I placed them into a baking pan. Excited that I had gotten this far without any mishaps, I unfortunately didn't read the next set of directions carefully and failed to fill the baking pan with BOILING water. (At least I remembered the water!) After 15 minutes, the estimated time the mousse needed to be baked at 325 degrees to reach 155 , I inserted the thermometer and found the raw looking mousse at only 74 degrees. Uh-oh! Going back to the recipe, I found my error, and simply waited another 15 minutes for the water to heat up and cook the mousse. Though it looked good, I discovered that 15 was a little too long as the thermometer read 170 degrees! ACK! I baked them too long. Would that be the demise of my first dessert?

After letting them cool for about 10 minutes, the time for the taste test had arrived. My mom took the first bite, and her widened eyes said it all as she exclaimed, "It's so smooth!" And it was. I had not overcooked it. The dense texture was still foamy, and the mousse had a rich bittersweet flavor, with the coffee adding that wonderful depth and extra bite that I like. Not sure what the brandy added however.

Alice writes, "Baking transforms chocolate mousse in wonderful subtle ways, deepening its flavor and making it more melt-in-your-mouth." And after thoroughly savoring each bite, I do agree. It was wonderful. It was easy. And I have a few more ramekins covered with plastic wrap in the fridge for me to savor and enjoy over the next few days.

But for now, it's back to the books, back to the thesis, and back to planning my next study break bake. What will be the next chocolate diversion Alice will lead me to? Stay tuned.