Well How About Some Mousse?

Well since tonight I had leftovers for dinner (see yesterday’s post about the scallop risotto) I figured it would be fun to try and create a simple dessert. In this instance I decided to go with a nice chocolate mousse.

For my own personal tastes, I’m more into the darker, bitter chocolates as opposed to the lighter milk chocolate types. So I used a 70% extra bitter chocolate for the mousse. For some strange reason lately I’ve had this craving, if you have ever had the Lindt Chocolate bars they make one with Chili Pepper and it is delicious. I decided to go with that concept and when I was blending the mousse, I had cut up (and de-seeded) one dried chili pepper. For the mousse I started off with some milk, a few tablespoons of sugar and some cinnamon on the stove top, heated up until it got warm and the sugar dissolved. This was then added to my blender cup which contained the chocolate and chili pepper and was quickly blended for a few seconds to mesh it all together. At that point, I then added a few egg whites (I approximated it as I have the carton of egg whites in my refrigerator somewhere around 3 or so). This was all then blended for a solid 1-2 minutes without stopping. It was then poured into the serving glasses, covered with plastic wrap and left in the refrigerator for approximately 2.5-3 hours.

The fun came with making the cream. Since I had some mascarpone from a previous project (see raviolis), I used it as a base for the cream sauce. Really all you do is take a quarter cup mascarpone, I added some orange liquor for flavor (optional…felt it would bode well with the dark chocolate-chili pepper combo). This is then mixed together until smooth. I then added a pinch of orange peel, a half cup of whipping cream and then mix and whisk together until it thickens. I then set it in the refrigerator until ready. After I added the cream to the mousse I then added some berries.

Enjoy.