Chocolate Mousse Hervé This method
Tuesday 1st September 2011, Recipe 20110901
How to make Hervé This’s Chocolate Mousse – an introduction
While failing at making exotic cheeses I had been experimenting with chocolate mousse. I had been experimenting with cocoa powder to make chocolate for the past few years and accidents in making chocolate have always turned out better than following any kind of recipe. The most difficult part of chocolate making is the tempering of the chocolate especially if you do not have a thermometer. I have tried making chocolate paste from cocoa powder – a pastier version of chocolate drink, I have tried using a ban-marie, a glass bowl ban-marie, a metal pot ban-marie, … you name it and it has always not quite chocolate. I have tried adding eggs, adding cream, adding milk, adding coconut oil,… but nothing is as good or stable – doesn’t melt in your hand, as store bought chocolate.
How I discovered Hervé This and chocolate mousse
Then one day I was watching Heston Blumenthal’s Kitchen Chemistry TV program when he mentioned in passing, that a French Scientist had discover a way of making chocolate gel. I think the TV scene was about 20 to 30 seconds of a pot of water boiling and cocoa powder being added in. It had to be a very short scene as most of the documentary was about Heston Blumental’s face. All the while I was under the impression that this French Scientist was from the 18th century until I discovered this article in the Guardian website. Oh my God this scientist is still alive! To be fair to Heston Blumental, he did mention Hervé This but I didn’t put the two and two together. This guy is a genius, no not Heston Blumental but Hervé This. He is creating wonders with cooking chemistry. More about Hervé This can be found here and Hervé This’s blog spot is here.
When you have failed at everything chocolate what else could go wrong? I decided to try Hervé This’s technique and wonders of wonders, I can make tasty chocolate stuff … and very simply and easily too.
Here is a version of Hervé This’s chocolate mousse.
Hervé This’s Chocolate Mouse | ||||
Item | Ingredients | Percentage | Weight | Weight |
(%) |
(g) |
oz. |
||
1 |
Cocoa Powder |
100 |
100 |
3.52 |
2 |
Cocoa butter |
100 |
100 |
3.52 |
3 |
Sugar |
100 |
100 |
3.52 |
4 |
Water |
100 |
100 |
3.52 |
Photos of Hervé This’s chocolate mousse process
Bring water to boil and add sugar and cocoa butter. I turned down the flame so that the water will not boil anymore. The hot water allows the sugar to dissolve quickly. Furthermore the melted coca butter will mix easily later, while it is still hot. Once the sugar has dissolved turn off the flame – no more heating required.
The start of chocolate mousse. Pour all the cocoa in one go and stir a few times so that the cocoa powder will not fly into the air once we use a stick blender. I used the switched off stick blender to stir the cocoa.
Turn on the stick blender and whisk the cocoa powder and solution into a gel into a chocolate mousse. This part takes only a few minutes. It is very fast.
Once whisked the chocolate mousse will look very shinny and gel like. The chocolate mousse does look beautiful, doesn’t it.
Commercial applications of chocolate mousse other than eating
If you eat it immediately it is delicious. Unfortunately, if you wait a while the chocolate mousse will begin to weep. The water seeps out of the chocolate mousse gel. I tasted the water and it was not sweet. That was amazing. This means that the sugar molecules were trapped within the gel. There may be a commercial application for this … filtering sugar out of water or using chocolate mousse or cocoa to clean dirty water.
It looks like the emulsifiers in the cocoa powder, I may be wrong as I am not a Food Technologist, are the ‘mix water into oil’ type rather than ‘mix oil into water’ type hence the water weeps. So I tried it again with 20% dairy butter added and the chocolate mousse did not weep. You can add more sugar if you find it too bitter as it does turn a little bitter after a few hours.
This article “How to make Hervé This’s Chocolate Mousse” was researched and written by Peter Achutha.
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