Chocolate Mousse

I've eaten my fair share of chocolate mousse, but I'd never actually made it on my own before. We were wandering the aisles of the Londonderry IGA, wondering what to make for dinner, and Ed suggested chocolate mousse for dessert. Sounds good! Neither of us knew what went into it, but we figured chocolate chips and cream would be a good start. Turns out all you really need is chocolate and eggs, but we whipped some cream to put on top, anyway. Luckily, there is a cookbook at the Upper Camp (from like 1950), which, while having useful recipes for things like chocolate mousse, also has recipes for things that include jello, and recipes for "exotic" salads, basically that means anything that isn't iceberg lettuce. At least it wasn't like the 1001 Muffins book, which has recipes for liver-and-onions-muffins, fudge-sauerkraut-muffins, and lettuce-muffins. Why oh why would you want to make a lettuce muffin? I think I need to try some of these recipes, just to see how they turn out...

I think it was a Good Housekeeping cookbook, either way, what I can remember of the recipe is below.

Chocolate Mousse
Made enough for three, although we divided it between the two of us

1/2C semisweet chocolate chips
3 eggs, divided
1 tsp vanilla
Heavy cream for whipping, for topping, if you want.




Divide the eggs, and whip the whites to stiff peaks. I used a hand beater thing. An electric one would have been easier.

Melt the chocolate chips. You can either do this over a double boiler, or in the microwave. I used the microwave, the trick is to take the chocolate chips out of the microwave when they're still shiny, but not yet melted. Then you stir them around, until they melt. Add the egg yolks to the chocolate all at once, and stir vigorously. Add the vanilla. I think espresso powder would be wonderful here, too, but we didn't have any.

Fold the egg whites into the chocolate. I generally do this in three installations - the first third of the egg whites, I just stir into the chocolate, to lighten it up. The next third, I fold in, and the last third, I fold in.

Using a rubber spatula, pour the mousse into serving dishes. I was able to fit it all in two wine glasses, but 3-4 of them would be ideal.

Supposedly, you have to chill the mousse for 4 hours in the fridge. I stuck it in the freezer for about 30 minutes, and then removed it to the fridge while we were eating dinner, so it wouldn't be frozen. Although frozen mousse wouldn't be so bad. Top with whipped cream, and serve. The freezer-method seemed to work just fine, because the mousse was delicious. I suppose you should be worried about where you get your eggs for stuff like this, but so far so good, no salmonella.