Even though Valentine’s Day is over, we wanted to share this recipe with you. It’s luxurious, rich, decadent, and chocolate-y. What’s not to love? Impress yourself.

Recipe (Inspired by Laura Vitale):

Notes

• Difficulty: Medium

• Length: 30 minutes of making the mousse + a couple hours of setting.

• Keep in mind: Mousse is best served in small portions because it’s so rich. Be gentle when folding, and stop right when you see no more white. Also, in order to save washing a whisk, whip your egg whites before your cream since egg white residue is okay in cream but cream residue is not okay in egg white.

• Why we made it: It’s rich and chocolatey and we already gave up dieting.

• Why you should make it: It’s delicious (if you love chocolate) and pretty impressive.

Ingredients

• ⅓ cup bittersweet chocolate chips

• 1 tbsp water

• ¼ tsp instant coffee (optional)

• 1 tbsp unsalted butter

• 1 egg (separated into yolk and white)

• ½ tsp vanilla extract

• 2 tbsp sugar

• ½ cup heavy cream

Equipment

• Mixing bowls

• Whisk

• Glasses for setting

• Double boiler (bowl over a pot of simmering water)

• Spatula to fold

Whisk the heavy cream in a until you have stiff peaks and put it in the fridge to prevent it from deflating.

Separate an egg.

Whisk the egg yolk with the sugar and set aside the egg white (you’ll need this later)

Place butter, chocolate chips, vanilla extract, and instant coffee in a heatable bowl that fits nicely on a saucepan (we’ve essentially make-shifted a double boiler).

Bring some water in the saucepan to a simmer (on low heat) and place the bowl on top of the saucepan. Make sure that the water is not touching the bottom of the bowl to prevent burning the chocolate.

Occasionally stir the mixture until all the chocolate is melted.

Whisk the egg whites in a small bowl…

…until it forms stiff peaks.

Spoon a little bit of the chocolate mixture into the egg yolk and sugar mixture and whisk together to temper the egg yolk for smoothness (if you skip this step, you might scramble the egg).

After tempering, pour the egg side of the mixture into the chocolate bowl and mix thoroughly.

Fold about ⅓ of the egg whites into the chocolate until incorporated (this is just to lighten the mixture), and repeat for the remaining egg whites.

Pour the chocolate mixture into the remaining cooled whipped cream.

Fold the chocolate into the whipped cream, just until you see no more white. Don’t overmix–your mousse will be dense.  

Continue folding until you have a very smooth texture.

Spoon your mousse into a cup, chill in the fridge for a couple hours, garnish with whipped cream if you please and…

That’s chocolate mousse, in a nutshell!

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