Chocolate Pavlovas with Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

Chocolate Meringue (for the chocolate Pavlova)
3 large egg whites
½ cup plus 1 tbsp (110 grams) white granulated sugar
¼ cup (30 grams) confectioner’s (icing) sugar
1/3 cup (30 grams) cocoa powder

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 95ºC. Line two baking sheets with baking paper and set aside.

Put the egg whites in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Increase speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar about 1 tbsp at a time until stiff peaks form. (The whites should be firm but moist.)

Sift the confectioner’s sugar and cocoa powder over the egg whites and fold the dry ingredients into the white. (This looks like it will not happen. Fold gently and it will eventually come together.)

Fill a pastry bag with the meringue. Pipe the meringue into whatever shapes you desire. Alternatively, you could just free form your shapes and level them a bit with the back of a spoon. (I made a round nest and a heart nest)

Bake for 2-3 hours until the meringues become dry and crisp. Cool and store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

These nests were filled by a luscious, rich chocolate mousse. I made only half of this recipe, and still ended up with enough to fill the nests (as seen above) and have 3 1/2 cup serves to freeze for the children.

Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse
1 ½ cups double cream
grated zest of 1 average sized lemon (optional - I skipped this)
250g 72% chocolate, chopped
1 2/3 cups mascarpone
pinch of nutmeg
2 tbsp Grand Marnier (or orange juice - but I used Creme de Cacao instead)

Put ½ cup (120 mls) of the heavy cream and the lemon zest in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once warm, add the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let sit at room temperature until cool.

Place the mascarpone, the remaining cup of cream and nutmeg in a bowl. Whip on low for a minute until the mascarpone is loose. Add the Grand Marnier and whip on medium speed until it holds soft peaks. (DO NOT OVERBEAT AS THE MASCARPONE WILL BREAK.)

Mix about ¼ of the mascarpone mixture into the chocolate to lighten. Fold in the remaining mascarpone until well incorporated. Fill a pastry bag with the mousse. Again, you could just free form mousse on top of the pavlova. I made little quenelles with teaspoons.

There was supposed to be a mascarpone cream made with a creme anglaise, drizzled over the top, but I made a mistake because I was halving the mousse recipe on the fly, and ended up making a light chocolate ganache as the start of the mousse. And then I only had enough cream to remake the mousse, and had to skip the drizzle. I could have gone back out to the shops, but I had a lot of other cookery going on, as I made and served these for our anniversary dinner. Which in hindsight was probably a bad idea, because after stuffing myself with prosciutto tomatoes, and beef wellington, and perfectly steamed broccoli that just mopped up all those delicious juices, and roast potatoes, there really wasn't much room for dessert. I made room, because after one bite of the sweet, chewy meringue contrasting with the dark, rich, creamy, bitter mousse, I couldn't stop. But I did, because I could only fit in half, and the rest went back in the fridge. But not before I caught this quick texture shot.

I was trying to capture the contrasts in the textures, but the photo doesn't really do it justice.

Super Simple Chocolate Mousse

I know I made chocolate mousse only recently but this was such an easy recipe, and it was for the Cooks Club Challenge on the Taste.Com.Au forums.

Super Simple Chocolate Mousse
Serves 4-6
60gm Milk chocolate
2 eggs, separated
2T caster sugar
Grated milk chocolate, to serve

Break chocolate into small pieces, place in a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water to melt. Remove from heat when melted.
Whisk the whites until stiff peaks form. Add the caster sugar and blend well.
Lightly beat the yolks into the melted chocolate.
Add the egg whites to the chocolate mixture and fold in gently, mixing well.
Pour into serving glasses/mugs and chill in refrigerator for a couple of hours before serving.
Grate some milk chocolate over top before serving.

I made a half batch, using Toblerone chocolate. It took a long time to set, and was a bit runny, probably because of the lower quantity of chocolate in 30g of Toblerone. But it was super delicious regardless. I ended up putting it in the freezer to try and firm it up a little, but forgot about it overnight. It made a lovely choc-honey ice cream that wasn't too hard to eat straight from the freezer, and I'll be using this recipe again to make ice cream!

Satan's Own Chocolate Mousse

With Valentine's Day coming up, I had to look around for a suitable dessert. Not so much because I like to go all out for Valentine's for DP (which I kinda do) but mainly for all the related blog events I knew I'd be wanting to enter. DP and I don't celebrate the day itself as such - he's not a fan of "Hallmark Holidays" so mostly it's just me, making an effort to make foods he likes for dinner. I was hoping to make something choc orange flavour, because DP likes Jaffas, and while these Jaffa Lamingtons over at Sunday Hotpants did cross my mind, I ended up going with a decadent chocolate mousse recipe. Originally from "How to be a Man" by John Birmingham and Dirk Flinthart, (yes, of He Died With a Felafel In His Hand fame) I came across this recipe in "How to be her Kitchen Love God: A Cosmopolitan Cookbook for Men" by Anna Maxted & Karen Collier, a most disappointing cookbook whose redeeming factors were exclusively extracts from the above masculinity guide.
Still, the few recipes I bookmarked looked almost good enough to make up for the rest of it. The recipe calls for brandy, which I thought I could swap out for Triple Sec or Cointreau, only to find I was all out of orange-y liquers, so I used Creme de Cacao instead (skipping the coffee beans)

The introductory paragraph from the book

Satan's Own Chocolate Mousse
1 Tbsp brandy per person
6 coffee beans
one egg per person
240ml double cream per person, plus extra 240ml for every two people
caster sugar
vanilla essence
150g dark chocolate per person

Prepare the brandy 24 hours in advance by soaking six good quality coffee beans in it.

Break the eggs, separating the whites from the yolks. Put the yolks away, add one dessertspoon of sugar for each egg to the egg whites, and whisk them until they stand up in stiff, frothy peaks. Put the whipped egg whites in the fridge.

Now whip 240ml of cream per person, with just a teaspoon of vanilla essence and a dessertspoon of sugar for every 480ml of cream. Whip it until, like the egg whites, it forms stiff peaks. Gently, carefully, thoroughly fold the cream into the bowl containing the egg whites, and refrigerate the lot.

Break up all the chocolate. Put the remaining cream in a medium saucepan with the brandy (remove the coffee beans first) over a low heat. Stir in the chocolate and the egg yolks until you have a thick, smooth, dark sauce. Turn off the heat, and let the sauce come to just above room temperature.

Now gently fold the sauce through the egg whites and cream until the mixture is evenly coloured. Spoon into individual serving dishes, and refrigerate. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream, some grated dark chocolate, and a couple of Italian sponge-finger biscuits.

I made chocolate baskets to serve this in, but had heaps of trouble getting them to stay hard in the heat we had today. I managed to plate one up this evening, after the cool change arrived, but for the meantime, I did my standard backup "fancy" plating - thank heavens for martini glasses!

To make chocolate baskets, melt chocolate, and spread in a circle on a sheet of plastic. Cut up ziplock bags work better than cling wrap because they are stronger and thinker, making it easier to work with. Once you have a large, even thickness circle, lift the plastic and drape it chocolate side up over a tall cup or glass. The width of the opening at the top of the glass will be the size of your base, so don't use a skinny glass like a champagne flute unless you are aiming for a chocolate vase and not basket. Likewise don't use a very large glass like a martini glass or your basket will look more like a plate.

This was an entry for
The Cookbook Challenge: Week 13 - Love.

This was also a Valentine's Dessert for Sweet Thursday, over at Simply Sweet Home