Home, Cooking: Chocolate Strawberry Danger Mousse

This recipe is, apparently, something French people find out about simply from reading the back of their chocolate bars, but I was deep in Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table when I acquired the knowledge that you can make a nice—even fancy!—mousse dessert with only four very standard kitchen-staple ingredients. In strawberry season, this is an excellent alternative “we bought too many berries, and need a dessert” choice, when you don’t want to turn on the oven for shortcake or strawberry cake. 

The really nice thing about this recipe is that it’s flexible. It’s ready as soon as it’s done; no cooling time necessary. I’ve doubled, or even tripled, the recipe when I suddenly want to serve it to a group. The toppings — strawberry and cream below, because it’s late May — could be almost any sweet or creamy thing you’ve got around. I’ve served it with crushed-up bits of chocolate bars or cookies, chopped crystallized ginger, and jarred cherries, on different occasions.  

If you’re a person who typically keeps eggs, chocolate, salt, and sugar around, the only forethought required will be to take the eggs out of the fridge ahead of time so they can reach room temp—about an hour of counter time is good. One thing: Dorie notes that since the eggs aren’t cooked, you should use the best ones you can, “preferably organic or from a trusted local source.”  

Chocolate Strawberry Danger Mousse

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients

• 3½ ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (if you’re using a bar — no worries about chopping if you’re using chips) 
• 3 large nice farmers’ market eggs, separated, at room temperature
• Pinch of salt
• 1½ teaspoons sugar
• Whipped cream or creme fraiche, for serving 
• Strawberries, for serving (optional, except in late May)

Directions

1. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler on the stove, or in the microwave, using 30-second bursts of medium power before stirring with a spatula. 
2. If you didn’t use a big bowl to melt the chocolate, transfer it into a big bowl that will hold the full recipe of mousse and allow space for stirring. 
3. Using a whisk, start adding the yolks to the chocolate, one at a time, until they are combined. 
4. Use your stand mixer, or a bowl with a hand mixer, to whip the whites with the salt until they are starting to form peaks. Then, start adding the sugar in ½-teaspoon installments, as the whites whip; stop whipping them when they are giving you shiny, medium-firm peaks. 
5. Now is the delicate part. You’re going to take about a quarter of the whipped whites and stir them into the chocolate-yolk mixture, using the whisk, until it’s smooth. Then, gently pour the rest of the whites over the chocolate mix in the big bowl, and start to combine them, using a whisk or a rubber spatula and a sweet and gentle touch. Dorie says it’s better for the mousse to look a little streaky than for it to be overmixed; speaking as someone who’s overmixed this and eaten the results, I think she’s right. 
6. Put mousse in the bowl or bowls you’re going to use to serve it. You can serve it right away, topped with your toppings, or put it into the fridge and then add the toppings and serve later on. (If you have extra berries, offer them in a bowl on the side, macerated with a little spoonful of sugar.) 
7. This is still really good the next day, and even the day after, though it does set up a bit and lose some of its egg-white puffiness.