Two ingredients??? Yup, just chocolate and water in this awesome recipe invented by French chemist Hervé This (well, if you decide to add sugar, then it's three ingredients, but still :P). There's no need to mess with eggs or cream. Gadget wise, all you really need is a trusty whisk, a pot for melting the chocolate and water, and two mixing bowls for, well, mixing. The reason it tastes so good is that it's pretty much pure chocolate, rich and decadent. Just make sure you use good quality chocolate and you're all set.
Also this recipe is pretty adaptable. The flavor can be tweeked by replacing some of the water with liquor or tea, or maybe by adding some spice, like cinnamon. Adding sugar is optional (I chose to add it). The mousse can be served in containers of all sizes. I brought some to a get together in little plastic shot glasses and decorated them with a bit of whipped cream and little red chocolate hearts. The leftover mousse was put in plastic champagne glasses and garnished with a dollop of whipped cream and the word "love" piped in chocolate, the perfect end for a Valentine's Day meal.
Chocolate Mousse
adapted from Cafe Fernando9.35 oz (265 g) bittersweet (70% cocoa) chocolate
1 cup (240 ml) water
4 tbsp sugar, optional
cold water & ice
Place ice and cold water in one of your mixing bowls. Then place the other mixing bowl on top to chill. Chop up the chocolate and place it in a medium sized saucepan. Add the 1 cup water (and sugar if you decide to use it) and place the pan over medium heat, whisking the mixture occasionally.
When the chocolate is all melted, take the pan off the heat and pour the mixture into the mixing bowl that's been chilling (the one on top of the ice and water). Take your whisk and start mixing until the mixture starts thickening and resembling softly whipped cream.
Continue whisking until it thickens more and can be scooped up by the whisk (video below showing perfect texture). At this stage it is very easy to over-whip the mousse, so watch the texture carefully or else it will end up grainy.
Divide mixture into serving containers, garnish (if desired with whipped cream and chocolate hearts), and serve.
Wow, this sounds incredible! I can't remember the last time I had chocolate mousse. I love your blog, and I'm totally jealous of the way you make everything look so beautiful :)
ReplyDeleteCome check out my competition!
http://for-goodness-cake.blogspot.com/2011/02/valentines-day-competition.html
Wow, I would've never thought chocolate mousse could be made with water!! Looks beautiful and delicious :)
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of chocolate did you use? Just wondering which brands are considered good quality chocolate. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteMeg & Tiffany: Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: I used Valrhona Le Noir Amer (71% cocoa), which I bought at Trader Joe's. Cafe Fernando suggested Valrhona Guanaja (70% cocoa). There are so many good dark chocolate brands out there; some that I like, other than Valrhona, are Green & Black's, Scharffen Berger, Dagoba, and Lindt.
But, I think what really matters is if you like the chocolate or not, because for this recipe, essentially the end product is still that chocolate and water.
It didn't work so well for me - the dark chocolate I used doesn't print cocoa percentage and there's no place to get good dark chocolate easily here. I may have also used a bowl that was too small for the task. Roughly how long did you have to whisk?
ReplyDeleteWhoa, neat! I am definitely going to have to try this sometime. :)
ReplyDeleteI love chocolate mousse and your photos. Great work, looks delish.
ReplyDeleteLove the "love."
ReplyDeleteAnaMarie: Perhaps your bowl wasn't chilled enough. If the bowl isn't cold enough, the mousse takes a lot longer to whisk. I think it took 5-7 minutes for me to get to the cream-like state and an additional 3 minutes to get to the mousse stage. But I'm not 100% sure b/c I didn't time myself and the minutes pass by a lot slower when your arm's burning from whisking, haha.
ReplyDeleteMaybe try a bigger bowl next time. It'll provide more surface area of chilled surface for the chocolate mixture and more room for arm movement.
{ Penny Candy Studios }: Definitely try it out :D.
maggie & Jessica's Dinner Party: Thanks!
Mine never really got to a mousse-like state, not even quite to a cream-like state, just a thickened state, and I whisked it for a LONG time. My arm is still burning today. So, I froze it in its thickened form and had a delicious frozen treat instead!
ReplyDeleteLove the shots! Looks delicious.
ReplyDeleteYou make the most adorable looking desserts I have ever seen! :D Totally a fan!
ReplyDeleteCenk is best! :) and this recipe easy,delicious and simple..your photos so cute :)
ReplyDeleteThis is rather ingenious! Thanks heaps!
ReplyDeleteI. love. your. blog.
ReplyDeleteI just discovered it and am blown away by your creativity and ability to execute complex decorations. You're a real talent! Keep it up!!
I love this idea! Great job.
ReplyDeleteBtw, your pictures are stunning!!!!!
wowww this is genius!!!
ReplyDeleteand those are reaaallyy adorable choc mousse!
lovin the choc hearts :D
I am in awe! I'm a chocoholic, and *never* heard of making mousse this way, so I'm blown away.
ReplyDeleteYou are so put together for a college student, and so creative!
AnaMarie: Well, at least it was still edible, not a total waste. I suspect it had to do with your bowl not being cold enough.
ReplyDeleteMelissa, D O M O !, ZarpndiT, Aimee, Cakewhiz, chika: Thank you all!
leighbakes: Welcome! And thanks!
Anonymous: Haha, thank you. I was totally surprised when I saw the recipe for this (I didn't think it was possible to make mousse this way either). But it is great for people who love chocolate, since it is basically just chocolate :).
You have amazing recipes on your blogspot :)
ReplyDeletei tried this recipe, and sadly it didnt work for me too.
I even got 70% cocoa and beat it like crazy with the cold water + ice! i dont know what i did wrong. In the end i made chocolate cake :)
But to end on a happy note: i love the recipes and photographs. Their astounding :)
Sounds very interesting! how do you make the little red chocolate hearts?
ReplyDeleteI tried this, I am a culinary student and need to make chocolate mousse for my exit practical..I tried this at home, and what I did is I used less water, more chocolate ( since I was using an inferior brand) and whisked until I got the right consistency.. Praise be it worked! I did decide to mix it with a little whipped cream I made, just to lighten the chocolate up a little. This is just awesome, we were told never to mix water and chocolate, this is amazing.
ReplyDeleteAwesome! I need to try this!
ReplyDeletebakesalot: Thank you! Perhaps, like vanita suggests below, using more chocolate and less water would help. Or maybe you could try an electric mixer, just be careful about overmixing.
ReplyDeleteDea: I added red candy coloring to white chocolate and piped heart shapes onto a piece of parchment paper and let them dry. Melted candy melts would work as well.
vanita: Yeah, the first time I tried this I was shocked that it worked. Mixing water and chocolate sounds wrong, but somehow it works. I think it has something to do with the emulsifier found in the chocolate.
Jess: Yes, do try it!
Can this be made with a hand immersion blender? Or is that disastrous overkill? I may find out for myself...beware.
ReplyDeleteWoW! That looks absolutely delicious.=D
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI had problems at first, but then switched whisks. A balloon whisk works much better than the elongated kind. An immersion blender with a whisk attachment works great too (but tends to fling choclate everywhere). Also, I didn't have enough dark chocolate (I made this on a whim to see if it would work) so I threw in milk chocolate chips. It still worked and didn't need any more sugar!
ReplyDeleteWow, great idea. I put a few more ingredients in mine, but i'm surprised to see that yours looks really good. Thanks.
ReplyDelete