Donna Hay's Chocolate Mousse

Chocolate Mousse With Raspberries

Chocolate Mousse With Raspberries

I have not posted any of my cooking for at least two weeks this September 2017 as everyone in the house was sick with a terrible flu. I'm glad that despite 40 degrees celsius fever and tonsillitis my boys are fine and none of us had to be hospitalised! As my appetite slowly came back I'm happy to be back in the kitchen, cooking and enjoying food.

We will join my husband's cousins for dinner today and I've been wanting to make chocolate tart. Sadly my frozen shortcrust pastry sheets expired (sadness!). Luckily I found Donna Hay's chocolate mousse recipe and I have all the ingredients required. Our family loves chocolate mousse and this is the FIRST time I've made chocolate mousse from scratch using raw eggs. It was an interesting experience.

I'm interested to find out if this chocolate mousse tastes much better than instant chocolate mousse sold in the supermarket. I do hope so because it took a lot more time and effort making chocolate mousse from scratch.

I used Donna Hay's recipe from her Modern Classics 2 Cookbook but you can also find her recipe from her website, link below:

https://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/sweets/puddings-cream/chocolate-mousse

And here is my cooking experience following the simple recipe:

Notes on Ingredients:

I find that it makes life easier if we read through the whole recipe + cooking instruction BEFORE starting to cook/bake. Getting all the required utensils, kitchen bowls and measured ingredients ready on the kitchen bench will also help reduce stress when trying new recipes.

I thought I should add a note to Donna's recipe that other than preparing the measured ingredients, we would also need:

THREE large bowls, ONE bowl for final presentation, THREE silicone spatulas, ONE whisker and ONE electric hand whisker.

My Cooking Experience Following Original Recipe:

1. The first step is to melt the butter and chopped dark chocolate on the sauce pan (low heat), pouring the chocolate mixture in the bowl and gradually beating in the egg yolks one by one. This step went smoothly. Beautiful glossy chocolate mixture at the end.

 

2. In the cookbook, the next step is to whisk the pouring cream until it forms soft peaks form. I found this instruction about vague and I think I unfortunately whipped my cream. I'm not sure what 'soft peaks' mean and as I'm used to making whipped cream I feared that my cream was over-whipped.

 

3.  The next step is to whisk the egg white until it forms soft peaks form, shifting in the icing sugar and whisking it again until it has volume and it looks glossy. Again I wasn't sure of when I should stop whisking. I was used to making meringues therefore I'm not sure if I've over-whipped my egg whites.

    

4. All elements, the melted chocolate with egg yolks, egg whites and cream are now ready to be combined. First Donna is asking us to GENTLY fold in the cream, then egg whites. 

Chocolate Butter Mixture, Whipped Cream and Whipped Egg Whites

My Chocolate Mousse looked grainy after mixed

5. Then pour chocolate mousse into a bowl and let it set in the fridge for at least 3 hours. I decided to decorate mine with some shredded dark chocolate and raspberries. My chocolate mousse looked grainy at the end. Fingers crossed it will taste okay for after dinner dessert tonight.