More Celebratory Chocolate: Easy, Easy Chocolate Mousse

The festivities for my brother’s wedding last weekend, including the rehearsal dinner complete with mini-cupcake mosaic, came to a close on Saturday afternoon. The finale, a send-off brunch for the newlyweds, obviously needed to include chocolate. Having limited work time, I decided to make up my easy chocolate mousse recipe, which is loosely based on Nick Malgieri’s “Instant” Chocolate Mousse recipe, though I’ve changed it around quite a bit.

Ingredients

8 ounces chopped milk chocolate (El Rey Caoba 41% cocoa)

8 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate (El Rey Apamate 73.5% cocoa)

1 cup heavy cream

4 egg whites

½ cup sugar

Simple list, right? The headliner is, of course, the chocolate.

Heat the cream to a simmer, remove from heat and pour over chocolate. Set aside and allow to cool. Meanwhile, whisk the egg whites, and slowly add sugar until soft peaks form.

Set meringue aside, and then whisk the ganache, which should be just a bit warmer than room temperature, until slightly increased in volume.

Now the one part of this that requires skill: folding the ganache and meringue together to keep the final product light and fluffy. This is a critical step to master, as you are otherwise asking your guests to eat dense ganache. While that is a-ok with me, most people can’t handle that. To appeal to a larger crowd, you’ll need to fold carefully. Start out by folding about one-third of the ganache into the egg whites.

Be sure to use long, light strokes, and stop before the mixture is uniform. You can then carefully fold this mixture into the remaining ganache, chill for an hour, and serve.

Be sure to get some for yourself before everybody else devours it.