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Inspired by Heston Blumenthal’s method, this luscious dark chocolate mousse almost feels like a cheat with how easy it is to make, but the end result is an incredibly light and airy bite of chocolate heaven that positively melts in your mouth.
Here’s Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- It requires a minimum of two ingredients but we adding in a few extra to take things to the next level.
- It’s clean eating, gluten free, egg free and arguably healthy!
- It comes together in about ten minutes making it extremely time-friendly.
- You can enjoy it by itself or with fresh fruit or even as a frosting for cakes (just be sure to keep it the cake chilled).
Ingredients Needed
- Dark Chocolate: be sure you’re using a good quality chocolate. I highly recommend using a chocolate with at least 70% cacao in it.
- Whole Milk: this adds a layer of richness and creaminess to our mousse.
- Salt: I’m using a Himalayan pink salt but you can also use sea salt. The addition of the salt balances and enhances the sweetness of the chocolate.
- Espresso Powder (for baking): this ingredient is optional but espresso powder is known for it’s ability to amplify chocolate and that’s exactly what it does in this recipe.
- Ground Cinnamon, Ground Nutmeg and Chipotle Powder: these spices are optional and you can choose to add all, one, two or none, but in my opinion they add phenomenal flavor depth and dimension to the chocolate mousse that really highlights the intensity of the rich chocolate.
In addition to the ingredients we’ll also need a bowl with ice and water to make an ice bath, as well a whisk. I highly recommend using an electric whisk for this recipe if you happen to have one, if not, a regular whisk or even a hand mixer will work.
Here’s How Easy This Chocolate Mousse Is To Make
The first step is to add your milk to a small saucepan and heat it gently until it’s just beginning to steam and simmer. Don’t let it boil. We essentially want it to be just hot enough to allow our chocolate to melt in it off the heat.
Once your milk is heated and beginning to steam, remove it from the heat and add in your chocolate and spices. Allow it to sit for 1-2 minutes until the chocolate softens.
With the chocolate softened and melting, thoroughly mix it into the milk until everything is evenly combined.
Place your chocolate mixture into and ice bath and begin to whisk it vigorously.
At first it will look like nothing is happening, keep at it for a couple minutes and it will slowly begin to thicken…and then the magic happens…
Suddenly your mixture will begin to get very thick, very quickly. It will also begin to lighten a bit as the chocolate cools and sets up and the air from being whipped gets trapped in it. Keep whipping only until you have a texture that is like thick frosting. You want to be sure you don’t over whip it because it will lose that luxuriously mousse-like texture if you do and it can even go grainy.
Remove your saucepan from the ice bath and serve your chocolate mousse. This treat is best enjoyed right away but you can keep it in the fridge though note that if you do it will cool down and harden a bit. The texture of the mousse allows it to be piped to give you a rather aesthetically pleasing dish that has a smooth, creamy, airy and luscious mouthfeel.
And if your mousse’s texture isn’t right, fear not! You can melt it down once more into a liquid state and rewhip it in the ice bath until you’re able to get the texture you’d like!
Here’s Why This Recipe Works
The simple answer is: the magic of food science!
The longer answer is that the milk and chocolate mixture is able to first be mixed together using heat and is then cooled while simultaneously being whisked which serves to emulsify the milk and chocolate together while cooling it to a temperature where the fat solids can solidify and stabilize, and since the mixture is being vigorously whipped, that forces air into the mix which is then trapped as the mixture solidifies and cools down.
And there you have it. A ridiculously easy chocolate mousse that uses a minimum of two ingredients that you can whip up (literally!) in under ten minutes! It’s clean eating, gluten-free, egg-free, time-friendly and the texture is phenomenally addictive. Seriously, give this one a try and when you do, let us know what you think of it by rating the recipe and leaving a comment below!
Incredibly Easy Dark Chocolate Mousse
Ingredients
- 175 g dark chocolate opt for 70% and up
- 1/2 cup Whole Milk
- 1/4 tsp espresso powder optional
- pinch Himalayan salt optional
- pinch cinnamon powder optional
- pinch Ground Nutmeg optional
- pinch Chipotle Powder optional
A large bowl of ice cubes with water and (preferably electric) whisk
Instructions
- Warm your milk in a small heavy bottom sauce pan until it begins to steam.
- Add in the weighed out chocolate and spices and allow it to sit for 1-2 minutes to allow the chocolate to melt and soften. Then, stir until the chocolate is fully incorporated into the milk.
- Place the bottom of the saucepan into your prepared ice bath (do not allow the water to come up more than halfway up the outside of the pot) and using an electric whisk, whisk until the mixture starts to cool down and sets up into a light and airy mixture.
- Enjoy immediately. If placed into the fridge it will set up into a firmer textured mousse that will still be airy and will melt in your mouth.
Notes
- This mousse is not stable if kept at room temp so be sure to keep it chilled. It can however be piped once it's made or chilled.
- If it sets up too much, you can place it into a bane marie or back onto the stovetop on low heat and melt it down until it's liquidous, then remove it into an ice bath and rewhip until it sets.
- If it's not sweet enough or you'd like a firmer set, add in a tbsp of icing sugar.
