When is a mousse really a soufflé? - a lucky dip

"mousses have been with us since the eighteenth century (or the Century of Foams, as I like to think of it). That was the period when court chefs around Europe, especially in France, discovered the frothing power of eggs — and went wild with it. Those people made foams out of everything: vegetables, meats, fish, you name it." Joe Pastry

It's a gorgeous day but nevertheless I am feeling uninspired - probably because I have been doing a whole host of other things - tasks actually and none of them remotely connected to food, so a lucky dip it was.

And I turned up a book I had completely forgotten about - Cordon Bleu Desserts and Puddings. Now I knew I had a general Cordon Bleu book - and it turned up once in another lucky dip long ago. I did a bit on who Cordon Bleu was/is at the time, so I won't do that again. I think I have also done chocolate mousse before so not that either well maybe a bit - but anyway there was not a recipe for chocolate mousse on the page I opened. My choices were Gooseberry mousse, Pineapple mousse 'en surprise' and Caramel mousse. The picture at the top of the page is a Gooseberry Mousse but not from the Cordon Bleu. It's from a site called Taste Spotting which just gives a link to the recipe - which is in Danish - so no joy there as to an actual recipe. However I did see one word there - 'retrodessert' - in the title of one of the paragraphs. It would have been interesting to be able to read, because that's the thing isn't it? Mousse is very retro. Why?

My book was published back in 1975 so I must have bought it here in Australia in my executive wife dinner party days. We don't eat many desserts unless it's for dinner parties - formal or informal, so I was probably looking for something to impress. The book itself is not very impressive looking - well they weren't back then were they? Like Elizabeth David's books there were just the occasional line drawing such as this one at the beginning of the chapters. This one is the chapter on cold desserts. And it begins with a paragraph or two on the differences between soufflés and mousses which makes interesting reading because I don't think that I think of a mousse as being the same as their definition of what is a mousse. Here is some of what they say:

"The basic ingredients of cold sweet soufflés and mousses are similar; but there is a technical difference in their preparation. For cold soufflés the eggs are always separated, the yolks are either beaten with sugar and flavouring until thick, or made into a custard with milk, and partially whipped cream is added. The egg whites are stiffly whisked and folded in to give the characteristic soufflé texture; the whole is lightly set with gelatine. ...

Cold sweet mousses are made with whole eggs plus extra yolk beaten together with sugar until thick. The flavouring and partially whipped cream are folded in, and like soufflés they are lightly set with gelatine."

To me - with the exception of the gelatine - their description of the cold soufflé is how I make a mousse. Elizabeth David and the Mastering the Art of French Cooking tribe too.

I tried to find another recipe for gooseberry mousse, but frankly, I failed. The recipes I found were really for gooseberry fool - a divine dessert - but not a mousse. And anyway we don't get gooseberries here.

So at the risk of repeating myself somewhat I decided to take the good old chocolate mousse as an example. But even here not many of my 'modern' cookbooks have recipes for sweet mousses. Indeed savoury ones are rather more common, It's a great pity because it's really easy to do and utterly delicious. Me I add the yolks and sugar to the melted, cooled chocolate and then fold in some cream followed by whipped egg whites and voilà after a bit of time in the fridge - chocolate mousse. No gelatine required. And I guess, instead of the chocolate you could use a fruit purée.

I have a massive tome by Donna Hay called Modern Classics and it doesn't have a single recipe for mousse in it. Mind you to be fair her website has several chocolate ones. But no it's an old-fashioned thing.

And my old-fashioned cooks do have a go - at least at the chocolate version.

The best, according to Felicity Cloake is Elizabeth David's recipe. So here it is in her words. Most cooks seem to think 70% dark chocolate is the best to use. And you need to fold the whites in with a large metal spoon.

"30g plain or vanilla chocolate per person.

1 egg per person

Melt the chocolate in a thick pan over a low flame with a tablespoon of water. A tablespoon of rum added will do no harm. Stir the chocolate until it is smooth. Separate the eggs and beat the yolks. Stir the melted chocolate into the yolks.

Whip the white very stiffly and fold them over and over into the chocolate, so that they are perfectly blended, or the chocolate may sink to the bottom. Put the mousse into a soufflé dish so that the mixture just about comes to the top (nothing is sadder than a small amount of mousse hiding at the bottom of a huge glass bowl) and leave it in a cool place to set. Unless in a hurry, don't put it on ice, as this tends to make it too hard.

Instead of water, the chocolate can be melted in a tablespoon of black coffee."

Considering her remarks about filling the bowl it's interesting that the editors of At Elizabeth David's Table chose to put it in half-filled glasses.

There are lots of recipes for chocolate mousse out there, but I'll just add one more by Nigella - who is a bit of an old-fashioned lady in some ways. She calls it Instant chocolate mousse, because it has no eggs at all - or in her words "no yolks, no whites, no whisking, no waiting." So how does she do it?

Well she melts the chocolate with some mini marshmallows and butter and then just folds it into whipped cream.

Interesting.

She also has a recipe that has no egg yolks but one egg white - White chocolate mint mousse

I also saw recipes with no eggs but ricotta cheese - Delia - no egg yolks but gelatine, etc. etc.

I do find it interesting though that although cup cakes have morphed from butterfly cakes into super fashionable bites, we don't have more mousses - or soufflés either come to that. The quote at the top of the page seems to think that they came in because of the discovery of what whisking eggs could do, and these days, well last decade anyway when foams were all the thing, you would think that a renaissance of mousse might have occurred. Food for thought. Might make some chocolate mousse next time I have to produce a dessert.