Extremely Simple Chocolate Mousse

February 8, 2011 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I used to be afraid of eggs.

And probably with due cause – there are countless stories on the news about salmonella and other health risks associated with raw eggs. But one of the most wonderful things about having chickens in the backyard is that I am finally confident enough in the quality of our eggs to eat them raw.

So this is a recipe for Christine, Christina, Jan, Amanda, Spice Girl and all my other friends who know the joy of having a warm egg, freshly laid that morning. The eggs in this recipe are not cooked at all, so if you’re planning to make it, please only use eggs you’re completely sure about. Commercial eggs are often months old before they’re put out for sale (even free range ones) and it would probably be unwise to use them in this recipe. Sigh. Obviously I’m still a little afraid of eggs.

The great thing about this recipe (apart from being outrageously simple) is that there’s no added sugar or dairy. It resulted in a firm mousse with a dark, pure chocolate flavour that matched brilliantly with our old bottle of vintage porto.

The recipe comes from Trish Deseine’s Chocolate, a much loved and well used volume on our cookbook shelf.

150g (5oz) dark chocolate (I used Callebaut 811 54%)
2 teaspoons rum, coffee liqueur or brandy (optional)
5 super-fresh large eggs (59), separated

1. In a large bowl, melt the chocolate in the microwave or over a saucepan of simmering water.

2. Remove from heat and stir in the alcohol (optional). Note that when the alcohol is added, the chocolate will seize up a little – don’t panic.

3. Add the egg yolks one at a time, stirring well into the chocolate mixture to loosen it up.

4. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then stir a large spoonful into the chocolate mixture to soften it. Then carefully fold the remaining beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Pour the mixture into a large serving bowl, or several smaller ones and refrigerate until firm. Decorate with grated chocolate before serving.

Posted in Recipes | Tagged dark chocolate mousse, easy chocolate mousse, lactose-free chocolate mousse, Trish Deseine Chocolate | 33 Comments

33 Responses

on February 8, 2011 at 12:28 am thecompletecookbook

Heavenly Celia.
:-) Mandy
on February 8, 2011 at 2:30 am Suelle

A wonderful classic mousse – what more do you need? Excellent!
on February 8, 2011 at 2:49 am justalittlepiece

YUM! I hate pudding (in the American sense) but I love mousse! Looks like a book I should invest in too.
on February 8, 2011 at 5:14 am Joanna @ Zeb Bakes

ahhh ahhh this was something I made as a very small child from My Learn to Cook book, well it may not have had alcohol in it. In those innocent days before eggs were suspected of having bad things in them… I love chocolate mousse, and I want yours.

Anyone got home laid eggs down my way ? I’ll trade for a nice loaf of sourdough….
on February 8, 2011 at 5:24 am Sophie33

A grand & elegant choco mousse recipe!

Luscious looking!!

XXX!
on February 8, 2011 at 6:26 am Yvette

I’ve been having too much chocolate at the moment…but wouldn’t pass on a spoonful of this chocolate mousse! Looks D-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s!! …x
on February 8, 2011 at 7:08 am Gillian

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

I love these recipes where there is nothing that distracts from the chocolate.
on February 8, 2011 at 7:30 am Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Mandy, thank you!

Suelle, I wondered if this might be an option for CT? It isn’t soft and fluffy like regular mousse, but it is very nice nonetheless..

Cass, it’s a great book, I also regularly make the gooey cake from it – https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2009/07/08/gooey-chocolate-cake/

Joanna, I wish you lived next door and I could keep you in a regular supply of fresh eggs. All this funny hot weather has thrown the girls’ laying patterns off though, and yesterday one poor darling laid an 85g egg!!! Pete thinks it was Queenie, as he saw her eat three lizards a couple of days before…

Sophie, Yvette, thank you! :)

Gill, it would be a good foil for showcasing a particular chocolate flavour, I think!
- on February 9, 2011 at 5:50 pm Suelle
  
  Nice thought, Celia – if i could persuade him he didn’t need cream with it. LOL!
  
  Joanna – most, if not all, UK eggs come from flocks which are innoculated against Salmonella, so should be safe to use raw
  - on February 9, 2011 at 6:10 pm Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial
    
    Suelle, that’s very interesting, I wonder why our chooks here aren’t innoculated too? We still get regular outbreaks here – example:
    
    http://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/aboutus/science-and-research/foodborne-illness-case-studies/aioli-using-raw-egg-salmonella-typhimurium/
    - on February 9, 2011 at 11:27 pm Joanna @ Zeb Bakes
      
      @Suelle, you know I haven’t heard of any salmonella in eggs things here since Edwina days…. but those memories linger – are organic flocks innoculated? I thought they tried to keep drugs to a minimum with those… so confusing!
on February 8, 2011 at 8:07 am cityhippyfarmgirl

I have rather deep seated raw egg issues that go waaay back.

Your mousse could convince me other wise though Celia :-)
on February 8, 2011 at 8:27 am spiceandmore

When I saw that first photo of the incredibly rich looking mousse I thought “I wonder how many kilos of chocolate Celia has used in this…”. Only 150gm – what is happening to you Celia – surely your boys wouldn’t have let you get away without at least another cup or two thrown in?! :) (Sorry, my peverse brain is thinking of your incredibly wicked chocolate brownies that you introduced me to…you know the ones that have about half a kilo of chocolate in a small tray of them?!)

I will have to make this mousse for Tara – she absolutely loves dark chocolate mousse.

One of our chooks also laid a monster sized egg. I will have to go and weigh it. I wonder what she ate…could have been lizards too. We have been letting them wander around the backyard for the last week or so, to cope with the hot weather and find their own way of staying cool. They have been so well behaved in terms of not eating any of my veggie garden stuff. Haven’t been quite as good with their toilet habits though as poo-ing on our doorstep is still clearly a really fun thing to do in chicken world.
on February 8, 2011 at 8:37 am Manuela

Hi Celia!

What a nice chocolate mousse. Yours looks so simple.

I wanted to make a chocolate mousse for my birthday recently, but couldn’t find my recipe! Yours is much simpler and uses less ingredients than mine, some of which I don’t have on hand presently.

As we have an abundance of fresh eggs, I will try your recipe….Chocolate mousse is one of my favorites.

Manuela
on February 8, 2011 at 8:42 am heidi

Looks divine.
Chocolate is heaven sent.
Fresh eggs however, require chickens.:(
I’m going to make the butterscotch bars; :)
on February 8, 2011 at 8:50 am InTolerantChef

That is such a simple recipe! It sounds fantastic and I will so certainly be adding it into my restaurant repitoire.
I think in Australia we have very safe eggs overall, but I have to admit that my catering eggs have been appalling over the holidays. Last week I used 8 dozen and 1 dozen mixed through were rotten- yuck! That’s especially annoying when I’ve successfully separated 23 and it’s the 24th that’s off, I could always be less cocky and separate them individually into a little bowl before mixng, but I’m used to bulk lots with no problems. These were free range eggs too. Also 1 egg had no yolk, I’ve never seen that before either.
Luckky you with your lovely chookies!
on February 8, 2011 at 9:40 am Claire @ Claire K Creations

Wow that is easy! Thanks Celia. I’ve never worried about eggs but I will now. It’s probably very naive but I never considered that supermarket eggs have been sitting there for months. Yuk! Market fresh for me from now on until I get some chickens.
on February 8, 2011 at 10:33 am hopeeternal

Lovely looking mousse – shame about the waistline! ;-) Not keen on rum though but I think you can substitute brandy?
hopeeternal
‘Meanderings through my Cookbook’
http://www.hopeeternalcookbook.wordpress.com
on February 8, 2011 at 4:37 pm Sally

I was on the same wavelength this week (see chocolate mousse post!) and also raised the topic of egg safety. How lucky to have eggs of that provenance. It’s a big decision to buy organic free-range here in Dubai as they are all air-freighted and very expensive…but I do. I love the dark rich mousse you’ve made – positively low-fat (no cream!).
on February 8, 2011 at 4:54 pm Debra Kolkka

I have always made mousse with raw eggs and never thought about the problems. Now you have me worried as well. I usually buy my eggs from the farmers’s market in Brisbane so they should be OK. I will have to look for a local supplier here in Italy.
on February 8, 2011 at 5:42 pm Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella

Wow only three ingredients! :o Hehe is it ok if I pop around and borrow three eggs? ;) Just kidding!
on February 8, 2011 at 7:10 pm Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Brydie, it’s very simple, and I know you would go all out to track down fresh FR eggs! :)

SG, this is very nice, but definitely nothing fancy. Having said that, it’s lactose and gluten-free! We had six very normal eggs today, so I guess the huge one was just an anomaly…

Manuela, it isn’t the usual soft and fluffy mousse – I feel like I need to keep warning people of that! :) But it’s a wonderful thing to make, especially with an abundance of freshly laid eggs!

Heidi, it is nearly impossible to go wrong with butterscotch bars! Hahahaha

Chef, I’ve noticed that even the market eggs seem to be much older over the Christmas New Year period, I’m not sure why. We had a yolk-less egg, although it was the tiny first one that Rosemary laid…

Hope, you could probably use any spirit – I’ve made it with rum, brandy and kirsch, all very nice.

Claire and Deb, I don’t mean to make anyone paranoid, but I’ve had three friends now who’ve had salmonella poisoning, one so severely that she ended up in hospital. It is lovely to know where the eggs are coming from and when they were laid!

Sally, that was serendipitous! Your mousse looks lighter than the one I made – possibly because of the use of milk chocolate instead of dark?

Lorraine, of course, any time! (Especially now you’re driiiiving!!) :)
on February 8, 2011 at 7:15 pm jackfud

Ah yes Celia – this is my family’s favourite (though it should be noted, that of course, as it’s so ‘pure’, success is only ever dependent on the quality of the chocolate). So rich, it is in my mind best accompanied by thick cream in a truly wondrous and complementary pairing.
My mum had (still has!) an old (1960s) Australian Egg Board pamphlet with almost this exact recipe (in old British equiv measures) that she, my sisters and I all came to use as our standard, though from time to time I make more complex, but not necessarily better, versions with usual additions of cream, sugar etc.
In fact, when I started cooking at a cafe in Paris, I called my mum to check the choc to egg proportions. I had to call her back some weeks later to report how much the locals all raved about this little Aussie girl’s sensational chocolate mousse!
My sister is still begged for it for functions … Great to see it again here. Best, Jackfud.
on February 8, 2011 at 7:23 pm Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Jackfud, thank you! How nice to know it’s a recipe with history! I think it is very nice with a bit of cream too, but it’s nice that the recipe itself is dairy-free. Makes it accessible to so many more people! :)
on February 8, 2011 at 8:10 pm Anna Johnston

This is a nice little recipe Celia, one I’m going to be sure to use, so darn simple – my type of recipe.
When I went over to London to take up a chef position (2006) I was shocked to learn about the salmonella problem…., little Ms Anna was so used to fresh eggs (mostly farm eggs even) that it really R E A L L Y seemed like overkill, the only way we could use fresh eggs was in this ghastly mix that came in a bottle & thought they’d all gone bonkers. Aaahhhh, the growing up of Anna has been a shock….. what can I say ;)
on February 8, 2011 at 11:51 pm Tes

Wow your chocolate mousse looks so amazing! I know I need to be really careful about it…sounds so addictive :)
on February 9, 2011 at 9:33 am Soy

Never really been worried about salmonella poisoning in eggs as I used to grow up on a farm (raw eggs, yum!) and cook all my eggs now. But I will take note, now if anyone want’s to trade some fresh eggs, I’m happy to offer a big handful of vietnamese mint (aka laksa leaves).
on February 9, 2011 at 12:38 pm Susan

Delicious! I love a good and simple chocolate mousse.
on February 9, 2011 at 5:58 pm Anne

looks great – our girls have been funny this week too! very odd laying habits – but I thought after the huge heatwave last week in Sydney it was probably to be expected. My husband froze some water milk containers and put huge chunks of ice in with them during the heat, but there wasn’t much else we could do. I think they all suffered in the heat.
on February 9, 2011 at 6:02 pm Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Anne, that’s good to know, thanks – our girls are still a bit off – only three eggs today! First hot and then cold, poor darlings don’t know whether they’re coming or going…

Susan, Tes, thank you!

Soy, I think you, Anna and the InTolerant Chef need to form a Canberra co-op and grow your own eggs! :)

Anna, I do wonder if it’s a product of industrialisation. When everyone had backyard chooks and fresh eggs from small flocks, salmonella never seemed to be an issue!
on February 11, 2011 at 5:35 pm Christine

Oh, yes, this does look good, Celia! Chocolate mousse is up there with my faves and the daughter has started making a surprisingly good white chocolate mousse…although it has cream in it so I always feel very guilty after eating it. It’s so nice to have fresh eggs to play with! :)
on February 14, 2011 at 2:03 am Laura

I just made this for my family – one of whom is allergic to milk, and hasn’t had proper chocolate mousse for years – it turned out brilliantly. I’ll definitely be making this again.
on February 14, 2011 at 7:26 am Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Chris, the recipe uses up FIVE eggs! Hahahaha…I knew you’d understand how exciting that was.. :)

Laura, that’s really great, thanks for letting me know! :)