Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts (55 page)

This may be served as is; it doesn’t need any decoration or sauce. Or the loaf may be decorated with whipped cream, using a pastry bag and a star-shaped tube. Or the following Mocha Cream and/or brandied cherries or other brandied fruit may be passed.

Serve on chilled dessert plates, cutting through as you would slice a cake. Make the portions small.

MOCHA CREAM

1 cup heavy cream

¼ cup confectioners sugar

1 tablespoon dry powdered (not granular) instant coffee

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Place all of the ingredients in a chilled small mixer bowl. With chilled beaters whip only until the cream holds a soft shape—think “sauce” instead of “whipped cream.”

If the cream is prepared ahead of time, refrigerate it. It may separate slightly—if so, whip it briefly with a small wire whisk just before serving.

NOTE:
If you wish, this frozen cream may also be prepared in an ice-cube tray or any covered container and spooned out for serving. And it behaves very nicely in a fancy mold. (Oil the mold lightly with tasteless salad oil before filling it.)

Frozen Chocolate Mousse

12 TO 1
6 P
ORTIONS

My friend Joan Borinstein, of Los Angeles, is a prize-winning chocolate dessert-maker and a full-fledged chocolate dessert addict who recently fulfilled a lifelong dream fantasy: She gave a New Year’s Eve dessert-and-champagne party for which she prepared 72 desserts for 100 guests. Her apartment that night was wall-to-wall desserts. This is Joan’s smooth and creamy chocolate mousse (it tastes like ice cream), made with a chocolate-cookie crumb crust. It is a beautiful and delicious creation for an important occasion. It may be made up to two weeks before serving.

CRUST

8 ounces chocolate wafer cookies (The bought ones are sometimes called icebox wafers. Better yet, make your own Chocolate Wafers, page 129.)

3 ounces (¾ stick) sweet butter

Adjust rack one-third up from the bottom of the oven and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Separate the bottom from the sides of a 9 × 3-inch spring-form pan; butter the sides only (if you butter the bottom the crust will stick to the bottom and it will be difficult to serve), and then replace the bottom in the pan and set aside.

Crumble the cookies coarsely and place them in a food processor or a blender (or place them in a plastic bag and pound and roll them with a rolling pin) to make fine crumbs; you should have 2 cups of crumbs. Place them in a mixing bowl. Melt the butter and stir it into the crumbs until thoroughly distributed. Pour about two-thirds of the mixture into the prepared pan.

To form a thin layer of crumbs on the sides of the pan: Tilt the pan at about a 45-degree angle and, with your fingertips, press a layer of the crumbs against the sides, pressing from the bottom up toward the top of the pan and rotating the pan gradually as you press on the crumbs—they should reach the top of the pan all the way around. Then place the pan upright on its bottom; pour in the remaining crumbs and, with your fingertips, distribute them over the bottom of the pan to cover it. Press them firmly to make a compact layer.

Bake for 7 to 8 minutes, remove from the oven, and cool completely.

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE

1 tablespoon dry instant coffee

½ cup boiling water

1¼ cups granulated sugar

12 ounces semisweet chocolate chopped

4 eggs (graded large or extra-large), separated

3 cups whipping cream

Pinch of salt

⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar

Dissolve the coffee in the water in a heavy 2-quart saucepan. Add ½ cup (reserve ¾ cup) of the sugar and stir over moderate heat to dissolve. Adjust the heat to low, add the chocolate, and stir until it is melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and let stand for a few minutes to cool slightly. Add the egg yolks one at a time, stirring them in with a wire whisk. Set aside to cool completely.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer whip the cream until it holds a shape but not until it is really stiff. Set it aside.

In the small bowl of an electric mixer, with clean beaters, beat the egg whites until they are foamy. Add the salt and the cream of tartar and continue to beat until the whites hold a soft shape. Reduce the speed to moderate and gradually add the reserved ¾ cup sugar, one large spoonful at a time. Beat briefly between additions. Then increase the speed to high again and beat for a few minutes until the meringue is quite firm, but not stiff or dry.

Gradually, in two or three additions, fold most of the chocolate into the whites and then fold the whites into the remaining chocolate.

In a very large mixing bowl fold together the whipped cream and the chocolate mixture.

Pour into the chocolate-cookie crumb crust, smooth the top or form a swirling pattern, and place in the freezer. After about an hour or so cover the top airtight with plastic wrap. Freeze overnight or for up to 2 weeks.

The mousse may be removed from the pan just before serving or days before. With a firm, sharp, heavy knife, cut around the sides of the crust, pressing the blade firmly against the pan as you cut. Then release and remove the sides of the pan. Now, use a firm (not flexible) metal spatula (either a wide one or a long narrow one): Insert the spatula gently and carefully under the crust and ease it around to release the
dessert completely from the bottom of the pan. The dessert will be firm and sturdy and easy to transfer. If you are serving it soon, place it on a large, flat dessert platter; if you are going to store it again in the freezer, place it on a large piece of plastic wrap and wrap airtight. In either case, return it to the freezer until serving time. It does not freeze too firm, and will cut beautifully and easily. Use a sharp, heavy knife.

OPTIONAL DECORATION

Just before serving, cover the top of the mousse with whipped cream and/or a layer of overlapping Chocolate Leaves (see page 264), and surround the whole dessert with a generous ring of large Chocolate-Covered Strawberries (see page 252). When Joan made this for me and my husband, she made some of the leaves with dark chocolate, some with lighter milk chocolate, and some with white chocolate, and alternated them on top—it was gorgeous. I have made it with one shiny leaf almost large enough to cover the top.

Or you can serve the mousse as is, and pass softly whipped cream as a sauce. Or serve it without whipped cream—it is wonderful just by itself.

VARIATION:
White Chocolate Mousse: This creamy white mousse is made from the Frozen Chocolate Mousse recipe. With the dark chocolate crumb crust, white mousse filling, dark chocolate leaves, and red and green strawberries it makes a fabulous picture. And with or without the leaves and berries, it is a sensational dessert.

Make the following, changes in the preceding recipe:

1. Eliminate the instant coffee.
   

2. Do not add the ½ cup sugar to the water at the beginning. (Use only the ¾ cup that is added to the egg whites—therefore, use only a total ¾ cup instead of 1¼ cups.)
   

3. Use 12 ounces white chocolate instead of semisweet chocolate.
   

4. After melting the chocolate in the water, beat it with an electric mixer until smooth.
   

5. Add 2 tablespoons of white or natural crème de cacao to the cooled melted chocolate and egg-yolk mixture.
   

Mousse Brillat-Savarin

10 TO 12
P
ORTIONS

This is a frozen white chocolate mousse adapted from a recipe created by Michel Fitoussi, head chef at the famous Palace Restaurant in New York City. (It is one of the desserts on a $500 dinner menu.) Frankly, I take a dim view of white chocolate compared to brown, but this is delicious regardless of its color, and is an original and beautiful dessert.

It is a white, creamy, marshmallow-like sweet mousse that reminds me of soft-frozen ice cream, with little pieces of crunchy white chocolate throughout. It is served frozen, and may be made way ahead of time. But the strawberries that are served with it, and are an important part of the dessert, must be fresh; so wait for fresh berries to serve it.

You will need a candy-making thermometer.

12 ounces white chocolate

1 cup granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

⅓ cup water

Pinch of salt

4 egg whites (½ cup or a little more, depending on the size of the eggs)

2 tablespoons kirsch

2 cups heavy cream

The chocolate must be chopped very fine (after the mousse is frozen, if the pieces are too large they become hard to eat). But because white chocolate is almost pure cocoa butter, if you chop it in a blender or a food processor it will quickly form a solid mass—which is not what you want. I do not recommend a blender; a food processor is all right if you are very careful not to overdo it. The best way, unfortunately, takes more time: that is to chop the chocolate with a long, heavy knife on a board. Then set it aside.

Place the sugar, cream of tartar, and water in a 1- to 1½-quart saucepan (the pan should be deep and narrow, not wide, or the thermometer will not reach the mixture). Cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spatula, until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture comes to a boil. Wash down the sides of the saucepan with a brush dipped in water to remove any undissolved sugar granules—undissolved granules may prevent a smooth syrup.

Increase the heat to high, insert a candy thermometer, and let boil without stirring until the syrup reaches the soft-ball stage, which is from 234 to 240 degrees on the thermometer.

Meanwhile, in the small bowl of an electric mixer, add the salt to the egg whites and beat until they hold a shape or are stiff but not dry.

While beating at high speed, very gradually, in a thin stream, pour the syrup into the whites. While you are adding the syrup, if the whites reach the top of the bowl transfer the mixture to the large bowl of the mixer and continue to add the syrup. Then beat at high speed for about 3 minutes until the mixture is very thick. (This mixture is called Italian meringue.)

Remove from the mixer. If you have not already transferred the mixture to a larger bowl, do so now. (The mixture will still be warm.) Add the chopped white chocolate and fold together.

Now, if the meringue is still warm, let it stand until it reaches room temperature—test it on the inside of your wrist; it must be completely cool or it will deflate the whipped cream.

Add the kirsch to the cream in the small bowl of an electric mixer and whip until it holds a soft shape—the mousse will be more delicate if the cream is not whipped really stiff.

Add the whipped cream to the cooled meringue and fold together.

Now, you can pour this into a large serving bowl, cover, and freeze if you plan to serve it at the table from the bowl. Or pour it into any covered container, freeze, and scoop or spoon out portions in the kitchen. It will not freeze too hard to serve easily.

Prepare the following strawberries during the day for that night.

STRAWBERRIES