Chocolate Mousse

JasperJ's Note:

This is a very basic, but delicious, version of the very well known dessert. And it is dairy-free to boot! (Without using fancy ingredients or compromising on taste.) It is heavily based on "Felicity's perfect chocolate mousse" (from the Guardian's Word of mouth blog, http://gu.com/p/2tgce), which in turn is apparently based on a reproduction of a recipe from "Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking". In any case, it is reasonably easy to make, uses ingredients that you will almost always have lying around and can be enjoyed even by people who are allergic to dairy products.

• Total Time: 2 hrs 20 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 2 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 1

• 1 egg (largish)
• 30 g dark chocolate (around 60-70%)
• 1 teaspoon sugar (to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon orange juice (or something else that's acidic)
• flavoring (coffee, caramel, vanilla, whatever takes your fancy)

Directions:

1. Get some decent chocolate, break it into small pieces and make sure you have read the rest of this recipe before continuing.
2. Separate the egg(s). If making more than one serving, use three (clean/fat-free) bowls. One for egg yolks, one for successfully separated egg whites, and one to use for the "current" egg white.
3. Whisk your egg whites into peaks (should be firm enough to, in theory, stay put if you keep the bowl upside down), with the help of a few drops of orange juice (or lemon juice for example). Supposedly the acid helps fixate the egg whites, and in my experience it definitely does no harm. Use a mixer if you want to save yourself a lot of time and effort.
4. Melt the chocolate (depending on your method you may want to start this while whisking). The best way to do this is probably au-bain-marie (in a pan over very hot water). Do NOT get any water in with your chocolate, and be sure to not let it get too hot (it only needs to melt).
5. Quickly mix the egg yolks, sugar and flavouring into the melted chocolate. Check that the taste is right (it should be a bit rich, as you are still going to mix it with egg whites).
6. Now, (carefully) mix in about a third of the egg whites. Your chocolate mixture should become a bit more fluid (and hopefully a bit more fluffy) as a result (making the next step easier). Also, in practice there is often a small amount of "unwhisked" egg white remaining at the bottom of the bowl with egg whites, try pouring it into the chocolate mixture as well (if it's not there, congratulations, you did an excellent job at whisking the egg whites).
7. Finally, fold the chocolate mixture into the remaining whisked egg whites. The trick is to get a nice and even chocolaty color, while keeping it all fluffy. This can take a bit of practice.
8. Distribute the chocolate mousse over the bowls (or whatever you're using) you want to serve it in, and keep it in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. In my experience it works quite well to simply make the mousse the night before, or around lunch time.
9. As a last note, this recipe contains raw eggs, with all of the associated health risks. (Apparently you can get "pasteurized" eggs, but I've never used them.).