Mousse au chocolat

Among its many great photos, our fabulous French cookbook has a recipe for chocolate mousse or, as it says, "mousse au chocolat".  It didn't look too difficult, and I even got to try out a new cooking technique.  The results were tasty (chocolate and whipped cream: where could you go wrong?), but the texture was a little airier than I usually associate with chocolate mousse.

Our notes:

• Not owning a double boiler, I used the standard substitute of a small mixing bowl set on top of a saucepan of simmering water.  This was the first time I'd tried using any kind of double boiler technique, and it worked great; the chocolate melted nice and smooth.  In terms of the recipe, I'd melt the butter along with the chocolate next time; adding the butter after taking the melted chocolate off the heat (as the recipe instructed) seemed to lower the chocolate's temperature too quickly.  Next time I'd probably add the butter when the chocolate is almost completely melted but still on the heat.

Worked great.

• The recipe called for the egg whites to be beaten until "firm and glossy".  Unfortunately for me, this led to a much foamier mousse than I'd been expecting (I've never been a big fan of meringue anything), and the overall texture was not that smooth--too much air in the structure.  So next time, I'd probably experiment to see if beating the egg whites to soft peaks would offer a smoother texture to the finished product than stiff peaks.

Almost meringue.

• Despite using bittersweet chocolate (Ghirardelli), the mousse still tasted oversweet.  It seems like the added sugar in the recipe acts partly as a stabilizer, so next time I'll try using something more than 60% cocoa!

Chocolate mousse, before refrigeration.

• The recipe said to transfer the mousse into molds before refrigerating, but I don't think the mousse, prepared as the recipe directs, would be able to set in what I think of as a mold, even if the molds were bigger than the ice cube trays that we tried using.  Perhaps it meant to just divide it into individual serving cups, or perhaps I just didn't make it right!

Festive. Sadly, the mousse as produced by this recipe doesn't hold a shape at all, so we were not able to get Block M servings of chocolate mousse.

• Interestingly, this mousse had a richer taste and smoother texture after a few days in the refrigerator.  I don't know if this is good practice or not, to make something on one day to eat a few days later.

Verdict: a recipe to try again, but with a few modifications, and maybe after trying other chocolate mousse recipes.

Chocolate mousse, after refrigeration. The presentation would probably have been a little better had we owned a pastry bag and related kitchen gear.

Le Cordon Bleu's Pâtisserie & baking foundations: classic recipes (2012), p. 176-177
Writeup background music: Muse, The 2nd Law (2012); we saw them in concert in Detroit this past Saturday and now I can't stop listening to their music.