Chocolate Mousse

How to prepare chocolate mousse

1. Chocolate cream: in a small saucepan, place the chocolate broken into pieces, the butter cut into cubes, and the coffee. Set it over a pot of gently simmering water (heat on minimum) and stir occasionally with a whisk until everything is melted and homogenized. Set the pan aside.
2. Egg cream: in another small saucepan, place the egg yolks, 85g sugar, rum, and water. Set it over the pot of gently simmering water and whisk the mixture well over steam until the sugar is completely dissolved. It will take about 8-10 minutes if done manually. You can also use a mixer. When the sugar is completely dissolved (run your finger along the bottom of the pan and feel if there are still undissolved sugar granules), remove the pan from the steam and place its bottom in a bowl filled with ice-cold water. Continue whisking until the egg cream is cooled, about 3-4 minutes. You'll feel the cream thickening and at the end it will flow from the whisk in a thick ribbon. Check the cream with your finger and when it feels room temperature, it's ready.
3. Pour the chocolate cream from step 1 over the egg cream from step 2 and homogenize, stirring gently with the whisk. Add a tiny bit of salt. Put the obtained cream in a spacious bowl, because you'll need room for mixing in the final step.
4. Foam: beat the egg whites with a mixer until foamy. When foam starts to form, add the remaining sugar (1/2 tablespoon) and continue beating until stiff peaks form. It's important that the foam is well beaten: turn the bowl upside down and if the foam doesn't fall out, it's ok 😉
5. Now comes the most important step, the one that creates the airy texture (see photo 9): place 1/3 of the egg white foam over the cream. With the whisk, mix gently: insert the whisk under the foam and lift... repeat this motion until the two are combined. They don't need to be perfectly combined, mix until you no longer see thick white streaks through the cream. Add another 1/3 of the foam and repeat the gentle lifting motion from bottom to top. Finally, incorporate the remaining 1/3 of the foam. Always keep your movements light, don't mix vigorously, because the foam will deflate and the mousse won't be airy.
7. Portion the mousse into cups, coffee cups, glasses, etc. Your movements should be gentle here too. Take the mousse gently with a spoon (depending on the volume of the glass you're filling) and let it flow into the glass. Don't stir in the glasses, don't level! If you want the mousse to settle better in the glasses, tap them lightly on the table. Refrigerate the mousse for at least 4 hours or overnight.
8. To create the two-tone glasses proceed as follows: put the mousse in a glass that you hold tilted at 45 degrees. When it's filled on the diagonal, place it on something that will support it in that position (I used a mug, but improvise something that fits your glass shape). Clean the edges if they got dirty. Refrigerate until the next day. The cream will set in that position. When ready to serve, fill the other half of the glass with whipped cream sweetened with a little (powdered!) sugar and a little vanilla essence. Grate chocolate on top.
9. Bon App tit!

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