Children's chocolate mousse

Children’s chocolate mousse

“...actually, I like this so much more than those dark, coffee-sharp, elegant adult versions: so, I find, does just about everyone else” (Nigella, p493).

I would love to report that I have enjoyed a delightfully relaxing half-term – certainly, I feel that I needed one – but when have things ever gone to plan? Bizarrely enough, for some unfathomable reason, it started snowing here in Bucks during the week. And when I say snow, I mean snow. The snow in our street was literally ankle-deep. Driving Chris to work on Wednesday, crawling along in second gear, I was hit from behind by some clever soul, who must have been doing at least 40mph. Without boring you with all of the details, my faithful little car is a write-off and both Chris and I have got whiplash from the impact. The good thing about all of this – if you care to look for the positives – is that my insurance company has provided me with a free courtesy car (due to the fact that the other party rightly assumed responsibility), which I can keep until my claim is settled. But the amount of hassle and paperwork generated from this accident is unfathomable and I feel as though I need a further half-term to recover from this one. The other event to report is that Louise did indeed visit us last weekend and is quite possibly the best house-guest in the world, because she brought me Nigella’s new book; “Nigella Christmas.” Now, in a way, I suppose I was holding off purchasing this book for myself. I haven’t mentioned this so far in the course of my blog, because I don’t like to be a pessimist and I do love Nigella, but in all honesty I wasn’t overly impressed with Nigella Express. Okay, there are some recipes which look very nice, but there are others which I can’t imagine that I would be keen on. Added to that, I can’t say that I completely comply with the “express” ethos of the book. Okay, I know that we live in a world where time is a precious commodity, and I also know that I don’t fancy boiling up bones for my own stock when I get home at 7 o’clock at night, stressed and frazzled, but despite all of this, cooking remains – to me at least – a relaxing and languorous exercise, to be embraced fully when there is time for it to be enjoyed properly. I don’t mind chucking supermarket food about in a pan 5 days a week, as long as I can rest happy in the knowledge that there is at least one day a week where I can reclaim my inner calm in the kitchen! And on that day, I genuinely don’t *want* to use caramelised onions in a jar or mashed potato from a sachet, and I don’t *care* if my meal takes longer than 10 minutes to prepare. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I relish the preparation. I suppose that I was worried – somehow – that I would be equally disappointed with “Nigella Christmas.” However, I have to say that I am absolutely *thrilled* with NC and can safely say that Nigella is back on top form. I am really looking forward to delving further into NC and spending many a winter evening curled up in front of the fire with my copy!
Anyway, on with the issue at hand. You probably don’t need to be told that I am so pleased to be cooking from the chocolate section! I loved those chocolate biscuits and hope that they are representative of the whole section. All 55 of the biscuits have now been demolished. Granted, Chris ate most of them, but Louise also tried one when she came up and absolutely loved it! And I have rediscovered my love of chocolate also. During the half-term, I have treated myself to a few bars of my favourite white chocolate – I couldn’t find Green and Blacks, so I brought the Co-op’s fair-trade white chocolate with puffed rice. So, I suppose this section has re-awakened my love of chocolate! I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it certainly means that I am bound to appreciate the rest of the recipes in this section. The only minor complaint that I have is that there are no desserts containing white chocolate – my very favourite!
I am eagerly anticipating this recipe for chocolate mousse. I know that chocolate mousse is a very traditional dessert and that a lot of people have eaten a lot of different mousse recipes, but I don’t actually have a lot of experience with it. I may have eaten the odd shop-brought tub when I was younger (although I can’t recall), but I have only made my own on one occasion. When I made the langue de chat biscuits for my blog last year, I made a Delia Smith recipe from her “Complete Collection.” As I remember, it was so rich and intensely chocolaty it was almost *too* much and immediately answered any doubts I had regarding the small portion sizes. Talking to my dad on the phone, he recalled that he did make chocolate mousse – albeit irregularly – when I was growing up. Apparently he used gelatine to make it set, which seems a world away from Nigella’s recipe. I do like approaching a recipe with hardly any prior expectations however, and am especially interested in what this recipe will taste like, given that it uses milk (and not the more usual dark) chocolate.
And looking through other Nigella books, it seems as though chocolate mousse is not a recipe which Nigella is ready to give up on. There is a particularly fabulous looking recipe in How to be a Domestic Goddess for a chocolate mousse cake (however divine that sounds!), a recipe for mint chocolate mousse in Forever Summer and two divine looking recipes in Nigella Express; an “instant” chocolate mousse, which uses mini marshmallows instead of raw egg to set the mixture and a recipe particularly close to my heart for white chocolate mousse. If this recipe turns out to be a success then I have promised that white chocolate mousse to myself! And another reason why I hope this recipe will be a success, is a particularly harrowing experience of attempting to make an apricot mousse for my Food Technology coursework and almost reducing myself to tears on a regular basis due to very temperamental gelatine and a stuffy glass-walled food technology room which was surely designed to inhibit *any* dessert from setting. I need this recipe, you do see, to cleanse me of that experience and stop the nightmares! That was 8 years ago now and I can still recall the taste and texture of the thing. However, I feel that the fact that I am now able to discuss it shows psychological growth indeed!
The potential new avenue of successful mousse making is by no means the only reason why I am excited about the prospect of this recipe. I also really like the ingredients used in this recipe. I have written above about my desire to try a mousse with milk, as opposed to dark, chocolate. I do think that dark chocolate has an important role to play in good desserts, but somehow I find it almost too bitter, too dark and too “adult” as it were. As childish as this is, I opt for milk over dark chocolate any day of the week! And for this recipe, Nigella suggests Valrhona lacte for this recipe. I have *longed* to try Valrhona chocolate for a long time now. It is the favourite of Nigella, Nigel Slater and Gordon Ramsey to name but a few, and a photograph of Valrhona bars adorns the introductory page of the “chocolate” section in How to be a Domestic Goddess. And not only does this recipe contain this desired chocolate, but also golden syrup, which, as I wrote last time, I absolutely *love.* Indeed, just the sight of that green and gold tin of Lyon’s golden syrup in my store cupboard fills me with nostalgic cheer.
Now obviously, this chocolate mousse is destined to be dessert. Nigella doesn’t mention anything with which to serve it, and so I had a think. I love the combination of chocolate and raspberries and so I was tempted to serve alongside a bowl of raspberries, but Chris is less keen on the partnership, so I did what I always do when culinary questions arise, and asked dad. According to dad, gently whipped double cream is the traditional accompaniment to chocolate mousse, and as Chris offered no fierce objections, I decided to provide a voluptuous bowl of billowingly whipped double cream. Of course, I needed to think of something to serve as a main meal. To me, chocolate mousse represents comfort-food, wintry pub-food and I wanted to think of something in the same register. And I thought that something simple, sturdy and delicious like cottage pie would be perfect. To this end, I am re-making Nigella’s cottage pie from How to Eat. I know that I have already made this for this blog, but it fits so well here and I loved it so much, it really does deserve a repeat; truly. With this cottage pie, I fancied making carrots as a vegetable accompaniment. I have found a gorgeous looking recipe for “the best whole-baked carrots” in Jamie Oliver’s book “Cook with Jamie.” I have only made two recipes from this book – a recipe for pot-roasted poussins, and his lemon oil salad dressing – but neither one let me down and I can’t wait to try this one. In fact, I really like Jamie as a cook, and would put “Jamie’s Kitchen” in my top 10 cookbooks of all time (do you remember those lamb kebabs which I made with the chick peas with sorrel?). With the cottage pie and roasted carrots, I have also found a lovely-looking recipe for onion marmalade in Simon Rimmer’s book, “Lazy Brunch,” which I feel will compliment the cottage pie perfectly. I never used to be too keen on Simon Rimmer, but he has grown on me throughout watching “Something for the Weekend” and his article on vegetarian food in “Delicious” magazine really impressed me. Now, I have never cooked anything from Simon before, and I am really optimistic that the onion marmalade will be a massive success. I will keep you updated.
In terms of quantities, I am actually doubling them! Nigella writes that the amount in HTE feeds 4 small children and that they may still want to eat more. Well that worried me slightly as I do feel that our combined appetites might outrival that of 4 small children and I felt that the safest thing to do was double quantities.

Ingredients: Everything for this recipe is really easy to come by. Don’t worry about locating Valrhona lacte, because I found it easily enough in our local Waitrose (along with the dark Valrhona). If you don’t have a Waitrose nearby, then I have also found Valrhona lacte on The Chocolate Society’s website – just google it. If you don’t want to go to such specialist measures, then fear not. The recipe states that you can use any good quality chocolate with 40% cocoa solids. That does mean any good milk chocolate would do. I am thinking particularly here of Lindt milk chocolate or Green and Blacks. Everything else is really easy to come by. I always irrationally panic when using raw eggs in cooking (be it mousse or mayonnaise etc), so I made sure to purchase some really good organic, free-range eggs. I actually brought half a dozen eggs from a local farm from the butcher when I brought the mince for the cottage pie.

Price: The Valrhona lacte is undeniably expensive – my 200g bar cost £5.45 – but I suppose that’s the cost of quality over quantity. If you were thinking of making this for a regular weekday dessert then I probably wouldn’t bother with the Valrhona, but for a special Saturday night dessert, I think its okay. The eggs cost £1.00, so the chocolate and eggs together cost £6.45. I didn’t need the golden syrup, as I had a lot left over from the children’s chocolate biscuits.

(The Valrhona lacte)

Method: Well, you can either make this a good 6 hours before you want to eat it, or you can be super-organised and make it the night before. Now, I was going to make it on Saturday morning, but I was so annoyed by Most Haunted Live, which Chris made us watch on Friday night, that I decided to flee into the kitchen and use making the mousse as an excuse not to watch it. In fact, I was so annoyed that I stayed out there pretty much all night. They promise us ghosts, and we get nothing but a few muffled bangs here and there! Anyway, it really is easy to make this mousse. Firstly, you need to melt the chocolate, syrup and water in a ban marie (and I literally used a stainless steel bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water) until it is a melted brown puddle. This doesn’t take long – about 5-6 minutes all told – and if you *do* double quantities, you don’t even need to measure out the Valrhona, as it comes in 200g bars.
It is then just a case of doing various things with various parts of the eggs. I started by whisking the yolks one by one into the melted chocolate. This is pretty easy work. In fact, I didn’t even use my electric whisk. Rather, I used my ordinary balloon whisk (and I say ordinary, but this is a Nigella Living Kitchen whisk, so surely can’t be described as ordinary!). It is difficult to fully incorporate the egg yolks into the mousse. Specifically, you will probably be left with the odd golden bubble of yolk, even after furious beating, but that’s just the way it goes. I will be honest and admit now that one kitchen job which I have always fiercely disliked is anything to do with egg whites. I am notorious for running the whisking job somehow and I have – on two separate occasions – ruined recipes by failing to whisk egg whites properly. Half of the time it is because I am just not sure just how much to whisk them – the glorious adjectives used by various authors to describe the desired texture just doesn’t seem to inspire understanding on my part. Because I didn’t want to ruin this recipe - *really* didn’t want to ruin it – I took Nigella’s tip if wiping round the bowl with a halved lemon prior to whisking the whites, tried to take on board Nigella’s description of whisking the whites to a “stiff snow” and also asked Chris for a necessary second opinion. I think I got this right. Certainly the whites were stiff and billowing, although not so that, if overturned, they would stay put. I add a photo at any rate, so at least I can be informed if I have made a glaring error. Stirring the egg whites into the yolky chocolates is easy, and is made easier by stirring that first spoonful in first, a la Nigella’s handy tip. And it makes for a very aerated, thickly bubbled thick chocolate sauce.
I was surprised to read the instruction to decant the mousse then into one bowl. I have always made my chocolate mousse (on the one occasion I did so), in nifty individual glasses, but knowing Nigella’s hatred of the dainty and individual portioned, I did what I was told and used a glass bowl. I then stored the mousse away in the fridge, where I could comfortably forget about it until the next day.
And the next day I could forget all about dessert, and concentrate on everything else. I made Simon’s onion marmalade first, as it should be served cold, then made and assembled the cottage pie and put it in the oven for the final blitzing of the dotted butter and grated cheese, just as Jamie’s roasted carrots were due to come out of the oven. I simply lightly whipped the double cream (brought also from the farm shop) after we had eaten our main course and in those few blissful moments whilst we waited for dessert.

(Melting the chocolate, golden syrup and water over a pan of simmering water)

(The above melted into a gorgeous brown puddle)

Result: I am not quite sure what I feel about the appearance of this dish. I am so used to seeing mousse dished out in individual glasses that I don’t quite know about serving it up in one massive bowl. I will be honest and admit that I’m in two minds about it. On one hand, I do think that the individually portioned desserts are pretty and can be made beautiful with the addition of something lovely or another – a langue de chat biscuit, or some crystallised rose petals or violets for example (or am I being too cutesy here?). Not only that, but you can buy some absolutely gorgeous individual glasses now and it would be very tempting to make a show-stopping production of this dessert! On the other hand, however, there is something very satisfying about producing one bowl of something as basic, yet as special, as chocolate mousse. It seems so welcoming, so hearty and also – from a purely greedy perspective – you are not limited by the meagre amount in your glass! As you know, Saturday night is my special night to indulge and eat pretty much what I like – within reason. This is not the day for restraint and it would be almost depressing to see an ever-decreasing sundae’s glass worth of mousse, disappearing before my very eyes! I think if I was making this for a dinner party then I would go down the pretty-pretty individual glass route, but for Chris and I (or an informal gathering of family or friends), the whole-bowl option was perfect.
I suppose you are dying to know about the taste of the mousse, and I won’t disappoint....this was very nice. The mousse was very chocolaty, very smooth and highly delicious. The chocolate flavour was very pronounced. This could never be described as a “chocolate flavoured” mousse. This mousse provided an unrivalled hit of chocolate, which was almost overwhelming. You may wonder whether the chocolate was worth the £5.45 that I spent on it, and although it *is* a lot for a bar of chocolate, I would have to say that this was very worth it. The chocolate was just lovely. It was obviously of a very high quality. Indeed, Chris commented that this was the nicest chocolate that he has ever tasted, and whilst I say that I am not a chocoholic by any stretch of the imagination, I have to say that the Valrhona was absolutely lovely. I hope it makes sense to write that the quality of the chocolate could really be tasted. It was creamy, velvety and a pure pleasure to eat. Some chocolate can be overly sweet – can’t it? – but this Valrhona could not be described as a “sweet” chocolate. It was creamy, chocolaty and luscious and made for a lovely mousse. I was worried that the addition of the golden syrup would make the mousse slightly too sweet, but it honestly wasn’t. Sometimes I think that there is almost an obsession – culinary speaking – to use the darkest, most bitter, almost sour chocolate in chocolate mousses. Certainly, Delia’s chocolate mousse used dark chocolate with minimum 70% cocoa solids. Whilst I never mind these dark and rich mousses, I almost feel that I appreciate them on an intellectual level, rather than a visceral one. I enjoy them because I feel I ought; because I know the chocolate is “good, dark, *adult*” chocolate. Eating this mousse made with milk chocolate, I realised what it was to actually gain pleasure from a chocolate mousse. This mousse was the opposite of one of those dark, elegant numbers. It was entirely creamy and chocolaty beyond belief. In short, it was enjoyable to eat.
I’m sorry, but this can’t be a wholly positive review, because there was one thing about this mousse which I just can’t be positive about and this is the texture of the thing. The top 2/3 (ish) of the mousse had the most delightful texture. It was light and very aerated with lots of gorgeous air bubbles just elevating and lightening the texture of the mousse. It almost melted on the tongue. Rather like *the* most expensive and hand-prepared aero chocolate bar, for want of a better comparison. However, the mousse had not set properly all the way through. In fact, the very bottom of the mousse was almost like a slightly aerated chocolate sauce. And for me, who does not have the best stomach for too much chocolate, this almost made it slightly sickly and cloying. I loved the delicate lightness of the set mousse, but that which hadn’t set as well just wasn’t so enjoyable. And I know just why this happened. It was the size and dimension of that bloody troubling bowl. I know had I poured the unset mousse into individual glasses, there wouldn’t have been such a lot of mousse to set – such a heavy weight on the bottom – and the mousse would have set perfectly all the way through. I almost feel guilty writing this, because I did enjoy this dessert and I *love* the concept of a milk chocolate mousse, but – what a shame – the texture rather spoiled it for me. There are two options available to you, should you want to avoid this problem – and I would recommend avoiding it. Firstly, you could use individual glasses – and I’m sorry to sound like a broken record here. Secondly, you could make it, as I did, in one big bowl, and cool it for longer than overnight – try two full days and see if that helps.
The other problem was my choice of accompaniment. In my opinion, the whipped double cream was a massive mistake. Because the sauce-like properties of the mousse did make it a little glottal and cloying, in my opinion, the double cream exacerbated this and began to make the mousse too rich. I actually ate around the cream in my bowl and most of it remained uneaten in its original bowl. In hindsight, I should have paired the mousse with an ingredient which would have added a different texture and taste. Raspberries, for example, would have added sharpness to the creaminess of the mousse and would have added a slight bite against the voluptuousness. In fact, I can quite confidently say that I will always serve fruit with mousse from now on and I plan to tell dad off for recommending the double cream!
I should perhaps mention the rest of the meal. You know by now that I love Nigella’s cottage pie and again I loved it – why wouldn’t I? Jamie’s roasted carrots were truly wonderful – yet another success from “Cook with Jamie” – and I will have to force myself to cook carrots any other way from now on. Simon Rimmer’s chutney was okay. I started off liking it, but there was a weird after taste to it which repeated on me, and I would be hard pushed to make it again (Chris thinks this was orange zest). All in all, though, this was a comforting, wintry pub meal which was enjoyed.
Overall, I really liked the mousse. The taste was lovely and I loved the milk chocolate. The texture left a lot to be desired and I would also change the accompaniments. A bit of a mixed review I’m afraid, but I liked it more than disliked it this time.

(The egg whites whipped into a "stiff snow")

(The egg yolks whipped into the melted chocolate etc)

(With the egg whites beaten in)

Other person’s perspective: Chris said that he really enjoyed this mousse. He expected it to be bitter – like the Delia mousse - but this was light, fluffy, chocolaty and very moorish. In fact, Chris said that the only problem was that he couldn’t stop eating it. Unlike me, he actually liked it with the double cream.

(The finished mousse chilling in the fridge)



(I thought you might appreciate a photograph of Jamie Oliver's "best" whole roasted carrots from "Cook with Jamie")




(Simon Rimmer's onion marmalade from "Lazy Brunch")

Future changes: Two main future changes are to be discussed here. Firstly, something needs to be done about the texture and to that end, I would either give the mousse longer than overnight to set, or decant the finished mousse into individual glasses. I have seen some lovely coloured-glass ones in our local kitchen shop. Secondly, I would never serve the mousse with double cream again. I am rather set on serving it with raspberries, but I am sure some other fruit would be just fine. Indeed, I am also rather keen on blueberries. Chris couldn’t think of any future changes to add here.

(My dessert - eaten by candle-light!)

Rating: I would vote this 4/5 in its present state and Chris votes it 5/5, which means it receives an overall rating of 4 ½ /5.