Mint Chocolate Mousse with Baileys Irish Cream

Loading

 

Whenever I’ve made chocolate mousse for guests at a dinner party, there’ve been rave reviews. My family loves it, especially my husband. The recipe is so simple and one can use any liquor of their choice here, rum, kahlua, flavoured brandys. The texture of the mousse is smooth and melt-in-the-mouth and the flavour decadent.

My introduction to this came from Irish T.V. chef Rachel Allen, whose chocolate mousse recipe I use for its awesome measurements and keep playing around with the flavours. Her recipe caught my interest years ago when I was hunting for one that appealed to me, because it was the simplest and yet looked like it could pack a punch. And it sure did. So now I use her basic recipe and add all my crazy stuff to it. Here’s one version.

I use chocolate compound for this recipe as opposed to chocolate as I find that dark chocolate leaves a very bitter aftertaste that doesn’t appeal to me at all in desserts. Here you get the dark chocolate flavour without that bitterness. For those who like the bitterness of dark chocolate, please go ahead and use that. For those using compound, there are different brands, some better than the others. Use a good quality one. I used Van Leer. You can also use heavy cream in this recipe. Unfortunately in India it’s really tough to get that so I use what’s available and it comes out fine with the low fat version.

As usual, whenever I get down to blogging a recipe, never mind that I’ve made it a million times before and its come out perfect every time, it’s guaranteed that on that particular day, something will go wrong, especially with stuff I think I’m really good at. I had to make this three times. The first time it got gobbled up before I could take pictures. The second time, I didn’t fold the egg whites in properly (for the first time ever!!) so it ended up looking a bit diseased and extremely un-photogenic even though it tasted good. As you know, a food blog with a bad picture is a complete no no. So I got third time lucky.

mint chocolate shards

Anyway, good for the family. They got to have it three days in a row and no-one’s complaining! The first two times I made the mousse with just Baileys. The third time I thought I’d change it up a bit to kill the monotony so I added Andes creme de menthe baking chips that I had brought back from the U.S. and it elevated the dessert to another level. If you’re not a mint lover you can eliminate the mint option, else go for it.

Adapted from Rachel Allen’s chocolate mousse recipe

Ingredients (serves 2)

60 gms dark chocolate (I used dark chocolate compound)
60 gms cream (I used low fat cream 25%)
1 egg (yolk and white separated)
1 tbsp Baileys Irish Cream
1 tbsp Andes Creme de menthe baking chips OR one square of After Eight chocolate.

Get Started

  • Bash the chocolate with a rolling pin till it’s broken up into small pieces. Make sure it’s in an enclosed bag or cover when doing this. 
  • Heat the cream in a pan on low till the sides come to a boil and switch the heat off. Make sure not to burn the cream.
  • Add the chocolate pieces and the Andes mint chips (or the after eight) to the cream and mix thoroughly till you get a smooth batter. Leave to cool for a few minutes.
  • Whisk the egg white till it forms soft peaks when you raise the whisk.
  • Once the chocolate mix has cooled, add the Baileys to it and mix well. Then add the egg yolk and mix till you get a smooth consistency.
  • Take a little of the whisked egg whites and mix with the chocolate to loosen up the batter. Then carefully fold in the rest of the egg whites into the batter till well incorporated and there’s no white showing. Careful not to over-mix so that you don’t lose the air bubbles in the egg whites, as they give the mousse the texture. 
  • Pour into two martini glasses or any serving object of your choice and refrigerate for at least three hours before serving.

Important notes: Make sure the chocolate mixture is not hot when adding the egg yolk else you’ll get a nicely scrambled yolk and ruin the dish.

Do not burn the cream. As soon as the edges start bubbling, give it a stir and switch off the gas.

Bash the chocolate into fine pieces making sure not to have large chunks to ensure the chocolate melts faster and evenly in the hot cream.

Make sure the egg whites are at the soft peak stage. Shown below. Fold the egg whites carefully, immediately pour into the serving containers and refrigerate.

Pictorial Steps

Leave a Reply