This Hairy Bikers chocolate mousse recipe folds whipped cream and stiff egg whites into dark chocolate beaten with yolks, icing sugar and optional rum. From Chicken & Egg, it fills 6 ramekins at my estimated 305 calories a ramekin, taking 4½ hours with my 4-hour chill.
In Chicken & Egg it’s “one of the most often ordered in restaurants”, so their advice is to “make your own with really good chocolate”. Where the simplest mousses use just chocolate and eggs, theirs adds 150ml of whipped cream as well as the whites.
Folding is where it’s won or lost, so a tablespoon or so of whites goes in first to loosen the chocolate before the rest. Then they aim for “a slightly bubbly but still pourable mixture”, and I’d expect heavy-handed folding to knock out the air that keeps it light.
Hairy Bikers Chocolate Mousse Recipe
Description
Six small pots of rich, airy mousse set firm in the fridge over several hours, ready to come straight to the table. Then a little grated chocolate and an optional spoonful of extra cream finish each one.
Ingredients
For the mousse
To finish
Instructions
- Melt: Break up the chocolate and put it in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, without the bowl touching the water.
- Beat in the yolks: When the chocolate has melted, take the pan off the heat and beat in the egg yolks one at a time. Then add the icing sugar and the rum, if using. And don’t worry if it turns grainy with the yolks, since it gets smoother once the sugar and rum are in. But it will still be quite thick at this point.
- Fold in the cream: Whisk the cream until it’s full of air but still fairly soft. Then fold it into the chocolate mixture until completely combined.
- Fold in the whites: Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks. Then loosen the chocolate with a tablespoon or so of the whites, and fold in the rest, keeping in as much air as possible.
- Chill and serve: Divide the mixture between 6 ramekins and chill for several hours until firm to the touch. Then top each one with grated chocolate, plus a little extra cream if you like.
FAQs
Why does Google show an avocado mousse for the Hairy Bikers?
That’s their Aztec chocolate avocado mousse from Eat to Beat Type 2 Diabetes, which Dave first came across in California. And it blitzes 2 ripe avocados with lime, stem ginger, 70% dark chocolate, coconut milk, cocoa and spices, at 247 calories a serving for 6. And they’re clear that its success depends on very ripe, creamy, non-fibrous avocados.
So it’s a clever lighter pud, but it isn’t the classic egg and cream mousse on this page. And despite Google calling it vegan, it takes 50g of honey unless you swap in syrup from the stem ginger jar.
What is Auntie Hilda’s chocolate mousse trio in Mums Know Best?
Si’s Auntie Hilda made it for his mam and dad’s silver wedding anniversary, and the Bikers tinkered a little to make it “super special”. So it layers milk, white and dark chocolate mousses, with an optional splash of Drambuie in the white one, and serves 6 to 8.
Each 200g of chocolate melts with 50g of butter in its own bain-marie, without stirring, then cools to about blood temperature. Then an egg yolk goes into each bowl, and 750ml of whipped cream is shared between the three. But they warn that if the chocolate is still too hot, the eggs will scramble.
Is there a vegan chocolate mousse?
Yes, in Veggie Feasts they whisk 150ml of aquafaba, the water in a can of unsalted chickpeas, with sugar until it’s like whisked egg whites. Then it’s folded into 175g of melted vegan dark chocolate, whisked with carton coconut milk, vanilla, salt and rum, and it serves 4 to 6.
They say the whisking takes up to 15 minutes, so an electric whisk or stand mixer is a must. And for another dairy-free chocolate fix, their vegan brownies from Veggie Feasts use ground flaxseed instead of eggs.
Is there a chocolate orange version?
Their Ultimate Comfort Food mousse has a “chocolate-orange vibe”, with optional orange or clementine zest and vanilla whisked into 150g of melted dark chocolate. And it sits on 200g of raspberries sprinkled with icing sugar and optional framboise, a few lightly crushed, or mandarins and orange liqueur instead.
For a baked chocolate pud instead, their British Classics Mississippi mud pie sets a whisked chocolate filling in a biscuit case under soft cream. Or for a cake, their Everyday Winners chocolate cake sandwiches two 20cm sponges and feeds 8 to 10.
Does it use raw eggs, and does it serve 4 or 6?
Yes, the yolks and whites go in raw, so I’d use British Lion eggs, which is my addition to their list. Then the FSA says Lion eggs are safe raw for pregnant women, babies, children and older people, though not for anyone severely immunocompromised. And their Our Family Favourites tiramisu folds raw whisked whites into its mascarpone custard in the same way.
The recipe in Chicken & Egg is marked serves 4, yet the method divides it between 6 ramekins. So I’ve gone with 6 small pots, while 4 bigger ones would come to roughly 455 calories each by my estimate.
