Chocolate Mousse (a promise kept)

Over 20 years ago, I joined the Peace Corps and went to Senegal after months and months and months of planning and preparations. While there, I met some amazing people, and I promised those people some chocolate mousse. For my own reasons, I left the Peace Corps before the end of the training, and while I don't regret that decision, I regretted deeply not getting to know those people better and not fulfilling that promise. Recently, I was invited to join many of the volunteers at the 20th reunion of the start of that journey, so I set about making a double batch of chocolate mousse with Callebaut dark chocolate, heavy cream, eggs, a bit of confectionary sugar, vanilla, and love. Love for the short time I spent with these people, love for how well I have gotten to know some of them since that time, love for being invited to participate in a reunion because I was there at the beginning, though not at the middle and end. I know, it's just chocolate mousse, but it's oh, so much more than chocolate mousse. It's a promise fulfilled 20 years after it was made. And there was blackberry-raspberry-lime sauce, too. 

What I like about this mousse is that it has good structure, but is soft and creamy on the tongue. 

A spoonful of dark chocolate mousse

So, here is the recipe I use. The proportions are simple to remember and the process is easy enough.

1 lb Callebaut dark chocolate chopped roughly

1 pint heavy cream

a few T powdered sugar

1 t. good vanilla (or another extract of choice, or a T of espresso powder)

12 large eggs, separated

1-1/2 t. cream of tartar

Heat the chocolate just till melted. I do this in a glass bowl in the microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring as I go.

While that has started, I whip the cream to firm peaks with the confectionary sugar and vanilla, then set it back in the fridge. 

After that, I separate the eggs: whites into a medium bowl, yolks into a large bowl. Beat the whites with the cream of tartar to the soft peak stage. If you beat them to stiff peaks, they get too dry and don't fold well into the other ingredients. Put these back in the refrigerator.

Beat the egg yolks till lemon yellow. The trick now is to beat in the chocolate so that the warm chocolate doesn't curdle the eggs and so the eggs don't firm up the chocolate again. I do this by drizzling the chocolate in slowly at first, while the beater runs. A stand mixer is very helpful for this. Once about a third of the chocolate is in the egg yolks, you can start pouring it in faster. beat in the chocolate by drizzling it in slowly at first as you beat it. This 

After all the chocolate has been beaten in, beat in a good spoonful or two of the whipped cream to soften the mixture up a bit, then fold in the remaining whipped cream. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites till combined. Spoon into serving dishes. Chill till set, at least a few hours, but mousse is often better the next day. When you pour it into the dishes, it will be quite wet and loose, but after a day or two, it will hold its texture very well. 

Serve with a sauce of choice, like this triple berry sauce. For the reunion, I served it with blackberry-raspberry-lime sauce, but anything that goes well with chocolate should work.
I prefer to serve mousse in champagne flutes so I can plunge a chopstick down to the bottom of the glass, then remove it, leaving a place for the sauce to go. This means having a little sauce all the way to the last bit of mousse.

This mousse is not for everyone it is not very sweet by itself, so the sauce is a must in my opinion.