Throwback Thursday: Chocolate mousse

Here’s a recipe you might want to make for Valentine’s Day. It uses cream, because I was seeking richness, and plenty of it. Lighter versions favour beaten egg whites, which will give you the airy, fluffy finish that is so sought-after in a chocolate mousse. But there’s a certain lightness to a creamy version too, as long as you remove it from the refrigerator for an hour or so before tucking in while gazing deeply into each other’s eyes, somewhat annoyingly for everyone else.

There is no exact picture of who invented chocolate mousse or exactly where and when, though the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is often credited with having invented the recipe which came to be named Mousse au Chocolat. That recipe consisted of cocoa, beaten egg white and butter; today that would be seen as a cheat version, but is easy enough to achieve. Toulouse-Lautrec was a noted cook when he wasn’t hanging around brothels or deep into the bottle, or both, and he called his recipe mayonnaise de chocolat. The only thing mayonnaise and chocolate mousse really have in common is that they contain eggs, but the lack of oil in the latter mocks his choice of a title.

Wikipedia claims that it was the invention of the Swiss chef Charles Fazi who cooked for Louis XVI, the last king of France, who lived from August 1754 until his execution by guillotine in 1793. The French culinary author Joseph Menon, who lived in the latter half of the 18th century, is credited with having first described a version of the dish as a chocolate mousse in 1755. Given that Louis XVI was only born in August of the previous year, we must presume that it was not invented for the doomed prince. The Sydney Morning Herald described “Louis XV’s favourite chocolate drink as a mixture of melted chocolate, boiling water and beaten egg (white or yolk)”. But, didn’t they mean Louis XVI and, if they did, was he even one year old yet? Perhaps they were influenced by Alain Ducasse’s famous recipe for a Louis XV, a layered mousse cake served at his Monte Carlo restaurant.

A recipe for chocolate mousse appeared in print in 1820 in Cuisinier Royal by André Viard, which Wikipedia tells us helped to create the fame that has remained to this day.

Key, at the core, to a chocolate mousse are egg yolks and chocolate. It can exist without either egg whites or cream, though there are experts who would insist that without whipped egg whites, it’s just not light enough and consequently not a mousse. Some recipes include butter, many don’t. Some are enhanced with a liqueur or Cognac, while other aficionados regard any alcohol in a chocolate mousse as an imposter that spoils the essential chocolatiness of it. (I use a dash of brandy in my recipe and there’s no loss of chocolateness whatsoever.)

The word mousse means foam, so those who argue that it absolutely must contain egg whites do have a fair point. In Champagne, the “mousse” refers to the fine bubble and its quality; the finer, the tinier, the better the product. But mousse au chocolat is far from being the first edible mousse. Or foam, in French cuisine. Many mousses, some made of fruit and a host of them savoury, preceded its invention.

My recipe uses whipped cream, not egg whites, but if you like you can swop out the cup of cream for two egg whites, whipped until soft peak stage, and fold those in instead, at the same point. I do however like the texture that the combination of egg yolks and cream give. It’s super-rich, and isn’t that the other thing, apart from its light and airy quality, that a chocolate mousse deserves?

Ingredients

1 cup of cream, chilled

2 large egg yolks

1 ½ Tbsp sugar

1 tsp brandy

100 g 70% dark chocolate

100 g Lindt Intense (orange and almond) chocolate

Method

First make a chocolate custard. Heat ½ cup cream in a heavy saucepan but do not boil. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and a pinch of salt in a bowl, and add the heated cream very slowly, while whisking briskly. Transfer this to a saucepan and simmer on a lowish heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. It shouldn’t take long at all, 3 to 5 minutes. Pour the mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl and stir in the brandy.

Melt chocolate in a metal bowl over a pot of barely simmering water while stirring. Whisk the first mixture into the melted chocolate until well incorporated, then allow it to cool.

Whisk the remaining cream in a bowl until it forms stiff peaks. Whisk a quarter of this into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the rest. (Or do the same with egg whites.)

Spoon into glasses and chill, covered with cling film, for several hours. Remove from the fridge an hour before serving, to lighten the mousse a little. This quantity made two glasses, so multiply to suit your needs. DM/TGIFood

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Champion 2021. His book, foodSTUFF, is available in the DM Shop. Buy it here. 

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks. Share your versions of his recipes with him on Instagram and he’ll see them and respond.

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