Chocolate Charlotte Mousse
This is one of my most treasured recipes from my time at Sign of the Dove, courtesy of the pastry chef who learned it while working in the pastry department at Michael’s or Chez Panisse in the 1980s.
It is luscious, chocolatey, creamy and works beautifully layered in cakes.
The key to success with this mousse is whipping the cream just until it starts to thicken and barely holds soft peaks. If the cream is too thick it will become grainy as you fold it into the chocolate.
The odd measurements are the result of the recipe being scaled down the original 24 egg yolk recipe.
Chocolate Charlotte Mousse
| Yield: 1 qt. |
Ingredients
7.3 oz chocolate, 61% to 64%, wafers or broken up
13 ¼ fl. oz heavy cream, whipped to just soft peaks
3 fl. oz sugar syrup, hot
4 large egg yolk
Special equipment needed:
- 1-qt saucepan
- Stand mixer with whip attachment or hand-held mixer
- Instant-read thermometer
Pre-recipe preparations:
- Place machine bowl and whip attachment in the refrigerator
- Set small saucepan with about an inch of water over a medium flame.
Directions
- Whip cream to soft peaks, place in the refrigerator.
- Melt chocolate, set aside to stay warm.
- Place egg yolks in the machine bowl and whisk in the hot syrup.
- Place over the small saucepan to form a double boiler. Whisk constantly until the mixture is foamy (like a sabayon) and hot to the touch, about 155 °F.
- Place on machine and beat with wire whip on medium-high speed (KA #8) until thick and the bottom of the bowl is cool to the touch (80 °F), about 5 to 7 minutes.
- On low speed, continuing with the whip attachment, beat in the chocolate. Scrape the chocolate off the bottom and sides of the bowl with a plastic spatula. Whisk until totally smooth and all the chocolate is combined with the egg mixture.
- Using a hand whisk, stir the cream two or three times to bring it back to the soft peak stage.
- Using the hand whisk, fold-whisk the cream into the chocolate. It is important that the mixture be thoroughly homogenous at this point.
- Fold in remaining cream just until a homogenous mixture. Do not overfold or the mousse will become grainy.
- Use immediately to fill cake or refrigerate
