bake club vol 5: (mocha) mousse
Pantone might be on to something with this color of the year!!
Hi hi hello!
Seeing all of your cookie tins and creations last month lit my heart up with joy and seeing some of my recipes made the cut to be included! Nuts!! Thank you so much for the first 4 month of bake club & for another year of supporting bake chats ♡ This sweet little side of the internet has changed my life for real, I have so much love for y’all it errors out my Escali. I have so so many fun prompts lined up for 2025, I hope y’all are ready to bake your hearts out ♡ We are starting the year out right with mousse!
Mousse is kinda having herself a little bit of a *hot* moment right now, from the virality of the Chez Janou tableside scoops of mousse to being named Pantone’s 2025 color of the year. So, why not kick off the year with (chocolate) mousse!
The way I see it, there are 3 *main* types of mousse: whipped cream only, cremeux/anglaise based mousse, whipped yolk based mousse.
whipped cream/lazy man’s mousse (I call it this, because it’s what I make when I can‘t be bothered to mess around with the eggy stuff), is pretty much just two ingredients: chocolate and heavy cream. of course, salt too. You make a ganache and lighten it with whipped cream. This is a great intro to mousse making if you’re a beginner baker. Also, a great option if you’re wary of the raw egg white component in the other versions!
cremeux/anglaise based mousse (my personal fave): This version involves making a creme anglaise and pouring it over chocolate to make a cremeux and lightened with whipped cream and/or whipped egg whites.
Pâte à bombe/zabaglione based mousse: This is like the super classic french style mousse. Yolks are cooked with sugar, either over a double boiler (Zabaglione) or with a sugar syrup (Pâte à bombe). Melted chocolate is then added to that, followed by either whipped cream, whipped egg whites- or both!
I originally had big plans to turn this month into a 3 week long mousse intensive. Each week we were gonna tackle a diff type of mousse, like this week was gonna be the 3 styles of dark chocolate mousse, then next week milk and the following would be white. But, for now I think we gotta lock in on the dark and run with it- don’t let that deter you from playing around with milk or white choc mousses! You know i’m always happy to chat about changes to a recipe in the chat when you’re going about making your recipes!
It’s a new year, and like the time for new goals etc etc. One of my goals is to send something out once a week here on Substack, from the bake club posts/recipes, to the other recipes I want to share with y’all, more monthly faves, baker interviews, etc etc. This newsletter and community is so so so very important to me, but sometimes I get so wrapped up in work/life, I don’t show up the way I would like to for you guys! So 2025 is all about being consistent. All of that, because I felt like the 3 week mousse seminar would burn me out real quick at the start of the year so… you know- gotta pace myself.
Alright, getting back to what we came here for: the mousse key player break down!!
Chocolate- I mean obviously, star of the show. But, chocolate is here for more than just flavor. The cocoa butter in chocolate gives you the rich and sultry melt in your mouth texture. As cocoa butter cools it traps the air bubbles created in either the act of whipping the cream & egg whites or the pate a bombe/zabaglione.
I briefly mention in this one on cookies, there are times when the chocolate is an add-in and switching between white, dark or milk only affects flavor and perceived sweetness. Think chocolate chip cookies- you can use really any percentage or type of chocolate without changing the structure of the cookie. But, in the case of mousse- chocolate is not an add-in, it is a structural component and each type has different properties to it. So you can’t evenly swap dark chocolate for white chocolate without the consequence of a mousse that doesn’t set properly.
Which is why you can’t just swap the different types out willy nilly! They all have different percentages of cocoa butter. Not just switching things up from milk to dark- but % to %. What I mean by this is, that even between dark chocs you’ll see a difference in setting power when using a 64% chocolate vs using a 72%. The higher the percentage typically aligns with having a firmer set to it in addition to having a more bitter flavor. The flavor thing really depends on the brand of choc you use too!
You might be like what the heck is all this % stuff!! Well, in the most sparks notes easy to digest way, the % on a type of chocolate correlates to the amount of the chocolate that comes from the cocoa bean, by weight. Cocoa butter and cocoa solids get ground up together to give ya cocoa liquor (non-alcoholic) then, depending on the type of chocolate, sugar, milk powder, emulsifiers and flavorings are added. So, if you’re looking at a 64% chocolate, 64% of it is cocoa liquor and the other 36% is the other stuff.
But, like also, maybe not that serious (nothing is that serious). I mean, like I don’t want you panicking in the aisles of the grocery store because they only have 70% when the recipe calls for 64%. Like it’s fine, that works. Now, if they only had white chocolate- then it’s like okay we gotta hit another store on the way home.
Egg yolks- The egg yolks in the recipe play a small but mighty role as an emulsifier, binding everything together. They’re also providing fat to the recipe, which lends itself to an extra creamy and velvety texture.
By way of pâte à bombe/zabaglione you’re also incorporating air to be trapped by the cocoa solids later, which gives the mousse the light and airy mouth feel.
Egg whites- Adding in whipped egg whites amplifies the airy texture of mousse. Unlike heavy cream, the egg whites do not contain any fat so the textured airiness they bring to the mousse is much lighter in mouthfeel.
The yolks in the recipe(s) go through a cooking process either by sugar syrup or foaming over a double boiler. The egg whites though are whipped and added raw. So definitely use a pasteurized egg here. If the thought of raw whites in the mousse gives you the heebie jeebs- you can sub them out and use (more) whipped cream in their place- the final product will be richer though.
*due to the risk of salmonella, people with compromised immune systems, pregnant women, the elderly and young children should be cautious of consuming raw egg products*
Heavy cream- Heavy cream is added to the chocolate too create a ganache that helps the chocolate emulsify into the mousse with ease. I find that when you make mousse with chocolate that’s just been melted and cooled you really run the risk of the chocolate seizing and becoming flaked pieces in the mousse. Which isn’t the end of the world- but you know. By adding the chocolate in the form of a ganache you minimize the flaking risk.
An optional second addition (for versions 2/3, pretty mandatory for version 1) of whipped heavy cream is once again adding more air to give the mousse structure and texture. Unlike egg whites, heavy cream is high in fat and makes for a richer final product!
the thing about fat and temperature!!!
The key piece to the final mouthfeel of your mousse is temperature!! After you make your mousse, whichever version you choose, you’ll need to chill it for a minimum of an hour but best results around the 3-4 hour mark!
All the fats from the heavy cream to the cocoa butter have chilled down and solidified. Which ya know- sets the structure of the mousse so it’s no longer soupy. So straight from the fridge the mousse will be dense, and linger in your mouth a little longer as it melts down, and you’ll kinda perceive it as having a richer mouthfeel. NOTHING wrong with that!
If you want your mousse to be as ploppable and lush as the chez janou mousse, you’ll want to let it temper. Which just means letting the mousse sit out at room temp for about 15-30 minutes before serving- depending on the size you your mousse vessel.
Think about it like butter- right, straight from the fridge it’s a solid block. If you were to put slices of cold butter on bread and eat it, it’s a totally different experience than eating butter slathered in softened butter.
Chocolate mousse V1, 2-ish ingredients:
This is the quickest and easiest version of the mousse to throw together!
Ingredients:
300 grams 64% chocolate
200 grams heavy cream
1 teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt
400 grams heavy cream, as cold as can be
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder *optional*
Directions:
Add the 300 grams 64% chocolate, 200 grams heavy cream and 1 teaspoon DC kosher salt to a medium bowl. Add the 2 teaspoons espresso powder to the mix as well should you want to use it!
Place over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir the mixture often, until melted. Once melted, remove from heat and allow to cool.
Once the ganache has cooled to about 75F, being to whip the 400 grams chilled heavy cream in a medium bowl. Whip until stiff peaks have formed.
Fold the whipped cream into the ganache 1/3 at a time until fully incorporated. Being careful not to overwork it and deflate all the air.
Pour into desired vessel(s)
Chill a minimum of one hour before serving.