Chocolate mousse help - quickly please

Shrimply

Hi guys,

So this doesn't happen to me, ever. I follow recipes and things work. Although I'm a little bit all over the place at the minute so I might be doing something really stupid.

I have on multiple occasions, while not in my own kitchen, made Delia's chocolate mousse from her complete cookbooks.

It's super simple, you use 55g of chocolate and 1 egg per person. You split the egg, melt the chocolate, stir the yolk into the melted chocolate. Whisk the whites and fold it all together. Easy right.

Well I tried last night but when I added the yolk to the chocolate it went really sticky and wouldn't fold through the whites properly. I persevered and stuck the whole lot the in the microwave to get it properly combined. The result is a really dense mousse. I figured, not being on to waste things that this would work fine as a bottom layer to my mousse.

The only thing I could think that went wrong was a microwaved the chocolate, I was careful, but I read somewhere last night that if the chocolate is melted too quickly it can go wrong. So I went back out this morning and bought more eggs and this time melted the chocolate the old fashioned way over a pan of water. Same result...

So at the minute I have a really sticky yolk and chocolate mixture, which is pretty much a solid ball, and my whisked whites. Is there anyone who might be able to tell me how to save this, or at least suggest where I'm going wrong.

Thanks

maddiemay

Don't think I can offer much help, but wondered if you have used a much higher cocoa solids chocolate, i.e. less fat than you have used in the past?

If the mousse is for family consumption only (not dinner party etc) and if might still be acceptable even if it turns out to be a looser mixture perhaps you could try using more cream than the recipe calls for.

I have not made this recipe for ages and note the recipe states good quality dessert chocolate, not sure what I would use these days.

Good luck.

Shrimply

Thanks Maddie,

It's possible the chocolate is the problem, it's just cheap dark chocolate which I tend to use for all recipes, but you might be bang on about it having less fat. It's Lidl's cheap chocolate vs Aldi's which I've used in the past haha.
I also wonder if perhaps the eggs I'm using are quite small. And in the past I've made it in much larger quantities so maybe there is more room for error.

Anyway, I won't know for a couple of hours if it's worked but I gently reheated the chocolate and stirred in some double cream until it was the sort of consistency I expected. I think it was still thicker than it should have been and as a result the mousse will be more dense

It's not going to be the end of the world if it doesn't look great but I'd have liked it to have been dinner party standard. I plan to pipe a load of whipped cream of the top which will hopefully make it look like the consistency was exactly what I intended.

If anyone does have thoughts about what I'm suddenly doing wrong it would be much appreciated, because I'm not going to be happy until I get it right. It's so frustrating when something you've done successfully several times just seems to stop working.

Queenriderbrekke

Too hot a chocolate when you added the egg yolk and it partially cooked?

jackyann

My experience is that happens when the chocolate is too hot. I melt it very slowly - bring water to the boil, then turn down to very gentle simmer - put basin of chocolate on, and watch carefully, stirring and removing as soon as it has melted.

I use eggs of all sizes, and have found that it works unless they are very large or small. However, you can be more accurate by weighing the egg, with shell, and then weighing the same amount of chocolate (a bit like a classic Victoria sponge!)
Or, you can google a table of egg sizes, weights and volumes. I have one that I printed out years ago, but can't see which site it was from.

I would add that the classic french recipe includes a tiny 'nut' of butter - that was missed from English recipes as our chocolate is less dense. I have found it does not work so well if chocolate is over about 75% cocoa (ie: better chocolate!)

Chris25

Queenriderbrekke wrote: »

Too hot a chocolate when you added the egg yolk and it partially cooked?

That's what I would have said

shrimply, it may turn out to be just lovely with the different mousse texture

bouicca21

I've done that recipe and with Aldi/Lidl chocolate. Always worked out ok. I agree the chocolate was probably too hot.

Shrimply

Thanks all, they were OK and smooth but very dense. I will try with cooler chocolate next time and hopefully that will make a difference.