A good chocolate mousse is smooth, airy, chocolatey, and melts in your mouth. It definitely isn’t gritty, watery, dense, or even clumpy.
Making chocolate mousse is all about creating that light foamy texture, without having it collapse on you. And luckily, using science, we know a thing or two about stabilizing foams. In a chocolate mousse, the chocolate itself has a crucial role in stabilizing the texture. But, don’t underestimate the power of eggs, cream, and even gelatin in a good mousse. Table Of Contents
Mix a tablespoon of corn starch with water or milk and add it to liquidy mousse, heat it up it will thicken up.
Chocolate mousse is a foam
One of the most important aspects to keep in mind while making a chocolate mousse is that it is a foam. That is, chocolate mousse is made up of a semi-solid continuous phase of chocolate and other ingredients, with tiny air bubbles dispersed all throughout. Without these air bubbles it wouldn’t be a mousse. It would just be a ganache, or maybe a pudding. When making a mousse forming and stabilizing the foam is the crux. Once you have that under control, you can make a wide range of chocolate mousses.
Making chocolate mousse is about:
- creating enough air bubbles
- making sure they don’t disappear again later in the process!
The basic ingredients of chocolate mousse
You can make a chocolate mousse with as little as two ingredients: just chocolate and water. However, most recipes will at least call for some cream or eggs. Let’s have a look at the role of all of these ingredients. Chocolate, solid at room temperature
Whereas a lot of foams are stabilized by heat (think meringues, cakes), the opposite is true for a mousse. It becomes more stable once cooled down and that’s because of the presence of chocolate. Recall that chocolate is solid at room temperature. As such, when a mousse cools down, the chocolate again turns solid (melting & solidification are both reversible processes). A solid material is a lot better at holding on to air bubbles than a liquid is. The air bubbles are simply trapped inside, they can’t go anywhere.
Gelatin is quite a unique ingredient. It’s a mix of broken down proteins and happens to be able to form delicate, wobbly gel-like textures. In a chocolate mousse, this gel-like texture helps to stabilize the mousse. The gel is more solid than a liquid would be. As such, it again is better at holding onto air bubbles and preventing them from escaping. Since the gel is still soft and literally melts in your mouth, it still makes for a soft, and smooth texture.
Short answer: yes, you can. Gelatin does help with the longer-term stability of a mousse. Also, if you’re making a mousse that doesn’t contain chocolate (e.g. a strawberry mousse), you probably need gelatin, or an equivalent ingredient to ensure the mousse remains stable over time since you lack the stabilizing feature from the chocolate itself.
Heavy whipping cream is great at foaming, thanks to its high fat content. The fat particles in the cream will surround the air bubbles and ensure a light foam is formed. However, whipped cream is not very stable. If left alone, whipped cream will start to collapse in a matter of hours, even faster at higher temperatures. It’s why heavy cream is great for adding air but needs the help of other ingredients to make sure that light and air chocolate mousse doesn’t start collapsing right after you make it.
You have to mix the whipped cream (and/or eggs) with the other liquid ingredients of the mousse. This can become quite challenging if the whipped cream is whipped up into very hard peaks, close to becoming butter. Instead, you want the whipped cream to be light and airy, but still have quite soft peaks.
Chocolate does not contain any water. As a matter of fact, if chocolate comes into contact with water it seizes up and only when you add enough water will it become a manageable texture again. Cream contains about 80% water, so adds a significant amount of water to the mousse (as do eggs by the way). This water is necessary to lighten up the mousse and make it capable of holding onto that air. Just fat would make for a very heavy and dense dessert.
Eggs are one of the best suited ingredients for making a foam. The protein in especially the egg whites can hold onto air bubbles very well. These proteins have parts that prefer to be in water and parts that do not. This way, parts of a protein will want to sit in the water, whereas the other part prefers to sit in the air bubble. By arranging themselves around these air bubbles, they prevent air bubbles from escaping.
A lot of chocolate mousse recipes use raw eggs. Whereas this may be fine for a lot of people, not everyone feels comfortable doing so. However, there’s a way to use eggs, without them being completely raw. Instead of whisking eggs at room temperature, you whisk eggs, with some sugar, light and airy au bain marie, that is, above some boiling water (you’re essentially making Swiss meringue but with the egg yolk included). The water will heat the eggs and pasteurize them, and, as a great additional benefit also help them become even more light and airy!
That depends on the recipe. Some recipes, such as the one below, call for whole eggs, others split the eggs and might not use the whole egg. A major reason for splitting the eggs is that egg whites can foam up a lot better than egg whites + egg yolks can. Egg yolks even making it a lot harder for egg whites to foam up. So, by whisking them up separately, an airier mixture can be made that is then gently folded together with the other ingredients.
Yes, you can, as we do in the mousse for this Italian cake.
Last, but not least, a common ingredient in mousses is sugar. Chocolate itself will contain a good amount of sugar, especially milk and white chocolate, but a mousse often contains a little extra. The sugar sweetens the mousse, but also contributes to its texture, lightening things up. Sugar also helps with aeration since both eggs and heavy cream benefit from containing some sugar when they’re whipped up. The sugar helps stabilize the foams, making it a little harder for the air bubbles to escape.
How to Make the BEST Chocolate Mousse Recipe EVER! | Tastemade Staff Picks
FAQ
How do you fix runny chocolate mousse?
How do you fix mousse that won’t set?
What is the thickening agent for mousse?
Why is my chocolate mousse not thick?
How do you thicken chocolate mousse?
Fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture. Be sure it is fully incorporated but don’t mix any more than necessary. Divide the mousse between 6 individual glasses, cover, and chill until set, at least 2 hours. Up to a few hours before serving, whip the cream until it begins to thicken up.
How do you make chocolate mousse?
The path to light and fluffy Chocolate Mousse involves just a few key steps: Soft peaks – it should be foamy but have SOFT peaks that flop at the top – as pictured above – not standing upright (“firm peaks”); Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture. Don’t beat furiously – that’s the sure fire way to a pot of liquid chocolate!
How do you make chocolate mousse with whipped cream?
Fold in about 1/3 of the whipped cream at a time. You will then have this beautiful chocolate mousse! Add warm peanut butter, or other nut butters, or COOKIE BUTTER into the melted chocolate. Just whisk in until smooth. Add extracts into the melted chocolate, such as mint, vanilla, anise, almond, etc…
Why does my chocolate mousse keep deflating?
I always make my chocolate mousse with eggs, but two possible causes are that your ratios could be off or your chocolate mixture is hot and the whipped cream is cold, causing the mixture to seize-up and deflate. If you decide to make a more traditional mousse, the ratio is very simple: 1 oz baking chocolate per egg.