mousse recipe, please!
I am looking for a chocolate mousse recipe that
I can add Grand Marnier to and that has a
consistancy thick enought to stand up a knife.
I remember this mousse made by only one chef at the
French restaurant on Main Street in Vermilion,Ohio back in the eary 1980's. I am so cautious about trying a mousse on a restaurant menu, because I usually get chocolate pudding!
chocolate mousse is not chocolate pudding!
Jun 18, 2002 05:06PM
I use the standard but good recipe of one ounce of chocolate per egg per person. So, separate the eggs, melt the chocolate (best quality dark chocolate), combine the yolks and chocolate. Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry, slacken the yolk and choc mixture with a third of the whites, fold in the rest of the whites. Pour into a bowl or individual glasses/bowls/whatever you want and put in fridge until set (2-3 hours, less even), do not cover or condensation might form and drip water onto your lovely mousse. To add Grand Marnier, do it when you melt the chocolate or add it when you are combining choc and yolks. Add some orange zest too. To make a thicker mousse, increase the chocolate quantity slightly (but don't go overboard).
I don't know whether you can stand a knife in it, if you are looking for something that thick, it may be 'petit pot au chocolat' you are after... but this is definitely very firm and very moussy (on the drier side - but still unctuous).
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Find a copy of the recipe from the Time-Life Cookbook series on France from the late '60's.
It is the perfect recipe that you want.
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I like - and use frequently - Pierre Herme's recipe, found in Desserts by Peirre Herme as part of the Chocolate Dome recipe. It's a book worth buying, or you can sneakily copy the recipe while browsing in your favorite bookstore.
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What you get in most restaurants is a short-cut mousse. Like cassoulet and paella, for real mousse, there are no short cuts. The recipe that my wife has used for years is from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle and Julia Child. It is tedious and very rich, but it is the real thing. For 37 years (the year we bought the book) I always order chocolate mousse in a new restaurant. NEVER has one come up to this one.
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Although it's not a mousse, I've used the following recipe as a stand in for chocolate mousse. It'a a frozen dessert that falls somewhere among mousse, ice cream and cheesecake. When thawed a bit, the texture is more like mousse and less like ice cream, but it's still quite dense. So I'm not sure if it will do the trick, but it's really good. Nothing like pudding. Note, though -- it contains raw eggs.
Chocolate Velvet Dream
Melt about 7 oz of dark chocolate; cool somewhat. Beat together 8 oz. cream cheese, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla (your Grand Marnier would be added here). Combine with the chocolate and two beaten egg yolks and mix until smooth.
Whip (in a separate bowl) 1 cup heavy cream. Set aside.
In yet another bowl, beat the two egg whites you have left from step one until soft peaks form; gradually add 1/4 cup of sugar and beat until firm peaks form.
Stir 1/3 of the egg white mixture into the chocolate mixture then fold in the rest. Fold in the whipped cream. Pour into one big mold or individual molds and freeze until firm.
This is one of my standbys when it comes to summer desserts. Sometimes I pour it into a springform pan on top of a chocolate cookie crumb crust and serve it like a cheesecake. Sometimes I pour it into individual ramekins and top it with raspberries. (My current plan is to pour it into silicone savarin molds, unmold and serve with raspberry coulis in the center hole.) I've even mixed in chopped up peanut butter cups and poured it into a peanut and chocolate crust in a deep dish pie plate (as a request for a big chocolate and peanut butter fan).
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The mousse recipe link below is for one I've used when I want a traditional French mousse served as a stand alone dessert. I have another I use as part of other desserts.
Link: http://www.hertzmann.com/articles/200...
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The recipe to which Peter Hertzmann has linked, taken from a published cook book, is an example of an entirely legal posting of an allegedly "copyrighted" recipe. However, under Chowhound rules (which, as I've argued before, appear to be predicated on very bad legal advice), Peter should have changed the wording of the directions in the recipe (but not of the ingredients). This is a good example of why that rule makes no sense.
Instead of "Beat the egg whites with the sugar until stiff. Set aside.," should Peter have written "Beat the non-yellow part of the eggs with the sweet ingredient until peaks form"? Instead of "In the meantime, bring some water to a boil in the bottom of a double-boiler," should he have written "At the same time, heat some H20 until it's all bubbly deep within one of those two-part boling contraptions"? What's a synonym for "melt"? For "chocolate"? For "carefully fold"? For "divide"?
Does anyone really think that it makes sense -- logically or legally -- to require Peter to convey the exact same directions using slightly different words? Of course it doesn't. The recipe to which Peter linked has very basic, descriptive directions, and contains no original expression; therefore it is not copyrightable.
Once again, I say this not in order simply to complain, or to criticize the Chowhound Team (whose edicts I generally respect and in any event follow), but in a sincere attempt to urge the Team to seek out better legal advice and change its recipe rule. The natural result of that rule will be to discourage the posting of valuable recipes (or, in some cases, to require the poster to engage in silly translation of basic, nonexpressive directions). It would be a shame for mousse lovers everywhere if we had to miss out on recipes such as Peter's.
Of course, any replies to this post probably should be moved over to the Site Talk Board. (The only reason I didn't post there was to make sure that Peter and other recipe readers were made aware of the issue.)
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Marty, you've made your point several times now. We realize you're trying to help (no hard feelings at all on our part!), but though there may indeed be differing legal opinions on the matter, we do request that recipes not be posted verbatim to our boards. That's our rule, and it's not up for referendum.
Again, ingredient lists can be reprinted verbatim, but the cooking steps should be paraphrased. Or, better, find the recipe on the web (cut and paste a fairly unique-sounding step and plug it into Google.com) and simply link to it!
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Fair enough (and thanks for noting that you recognize my good intentions!). If my campaign here is *necessarily* going to be futile, I'll give up the ghost. I guess what I still don't quite get is what the basis might be for any "differing legal opinions" -- I don't doubt that someone is giving you that advice, but I'd urge you once more to press them to provide some reasonable justification for it. (I'm not aware of any authority supporting the view; but of course, there might be something I'm missing.) I thought that Peter's recipe was a good example demonstrating that the advice you're getting, and the resultant Chowhound "you must paraphrase recipes" rule, should be viewed with a healthy dose of suspicion.
Of course, I know that you guys have the best interests of the community foremost in mind, just as I do. And I'm heartened to know that you take the question seriously and that (presumably) you've asked your attorneys about it. So I'll say "uncle." (I would, however, love to know what the authority is for the legal advice you're getting, because I do think it's an important and interesting question.)
Thanks for "listening."
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Why do we keep gnawing on this bone? Let's bury it. If the rule of thumb is to err on the side of caution, well, so what?
It's not such a big deal to verbally rework a recipe. Whenever I have to type in a recipe I usually rephrase the (usually) verbose directions, anyway. And when I use a recipe I've downloaded, I often rework it, substituting "dock" for "prick the crust with a fork," "temper the eggs and add to the..." instead of the long rigamarole describing the process that most recipes use, etc. It makes it easier to follow.
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Marty L: You are mistaken...
You wrote: "Peter should have changed the wording of the directions in the recipe (but not of the ingredients)."
If you compare the recipe as posted on my web site with the original, you will find that it is not a word-for-word transcription of either the ingredients list or the instructions. I have a particular style in writing recipes and this one, like all the recipes I use, has been reworked to fit my cooking and writing style. You were wrong to use me as an example in your diatribe.
BTW, as a general rule, I always give the source recipe that I start with to create the recipe being posted. I think there are too many recipes on the web already where the poster ignores that someone else had to create it first. If you spent the time looking through my site you would have seen that.
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Here's my husband the chefs chocolate orange mousse recipe which is reasonable to produce and very delicious.
The key is to use the best and freshest chocolate you can afford - I like belgium chocolate like callebaut (altho not the "best" better than most and good value for money. Also the frozen oj concentrate really gives an intensive orange flavor which is then enhanced by the liquor.
16oz dark chocolate broken up
6-7 tablespoons frozen o.j.(orange juice) concentrate
1/2 cup cointreau or grand marnier or other orange liquor
1 cup sugar (1/2 cup in chocolate - 1/2 cup in egg whites)
6 eggs seperated
3 cups heavy cream
2 packages gelatin dissolved in about 4Tablespoons orange juice (not concentrated)
Melt chocolate over bain marie, add 1/2 cup sugar, egg yolks, liquor, and oj concentrate
Heat gelatin to dissolve - add to chocolate mixture
Whisk whites hard - add remaining sugar (1/2 cup) when walready stiff. Whip cream. Add both to chocolate and fold together (make sure chocolate has cooled off somewhat but is still liquidy. Let set up several hours (can portion individually or in large bowl - can also use to frost a cake - yummmm)
Also try serving with cointreau whipped cream to further enhance chocolate orange flavor.
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