Bitter chocolate mousse with coffee granita and light ginger cream
I have a thing for desserts, and especially those which involve dark chocolate. It’s odd actually as I have always been a milk chocolate fan and in my youth I hated, yes hated, dark chocolate in all its forms. I remember with fond memories buying my Gran Black Magic dark chocolate for her birthday (She still loves the stuff) and thinking to myself that I was more than happy to see that chocolate go. Had it been any other chocolate I would have been in a state of mourning.
Nowadays though I can’t get enough of dark chocolate, and anything above 70% cocoa is, in my opinion, perfect. It’s almost as if my taste buds have been realigned and I can now appreciate the complexity of taste you get from dark chocolate. Before I would literally screw up my face in anguish… I found it so bitter.
Anyway, suffice to say I am now a dark chocolate believer and desserts which use the stuff are nearly always at the top of my todo list. In fact, when I got this book I paged through it all and this very dish I wanted to attempt first. As you can see already I didn’t do this dish first and one of the main reasons why was because I knew I needed to get one extra gadget to really do justice to the dish, and that was one of these…
Cream whipper
Yes people this is a cream whipper. I have been after one of these for ages and after a few attempts at making foams etc I realised there is a reason why chefs use these things. They are brilliant! You chuck in your cream or whatever, charge it up, shake it like made and then pull the trigger. Out comes lovely foam. It is brilliant and I knew that it would be perfect for the light ginger cream topping. Oooh, and speaking of ginger don’t you just love that too!? Yet another reason to be patient and want to get this dish right as I think ginger has to be one of the most delicious things on the planet. Ginger and chocolate… now there is a marriage made in heaven!
Anyway, so as you can see I have been holding off on this one for a while. Partly due to lack of gadgetry, and partly because I really really did not want to screw this one up at all. I was almost scared of attempting it. It looks so beautiful in the book, and I knew it would be a challenge to get right… I mean, just the recipe itself spans 3 pages of fine text. Believe me people, this is no easy dish to prepare!
The ingredients
The books starts by instructing you to temper the chocolate first but having read through it all countless times I figured it would be best to prepare the ginger cream, coffee granita and the milk ice cream first in order to get them set in time. I started with the ice cream.
Milk icecream is something I have never had before. I understand that the predominant flavour should be milk, but I was not too sure how this would marry with the stronger flavours of the chocolate and ginger. Still it was dead easy to prepare and involved simply boiling down some whole milk by two thirds and then adding this to some condensed milk and liquid glucose. This was then cooled and slapped in an ice cream maker till set and then transferred to the freezer. Job done.
Reducing the milk
Milk cooled and ready for the ice cream maker
Milk ice cream... Done
The coffee granita was a doddle and simply involved making a stock syrup with sugar and water, adding the espresso shots and then freezing. Periodically I would scrape this up with a fork to loosen it a bit and that was it.
Coffee granita before going in the freezer
The ginger cream was equally easy and simply involved adding the cream and milk to a pan and bringing to the boil. The heat was then turned off and I then added freshly grated ginger to the liquid to infuse for a few minutes before straining and then adding some gelatine leaf. Once cooled it was put in the fridge to firm up. Periodically I would take out of the fridge and whip it up slightly, but I didn’t do this as rigorously as the book suggests as I knew my cream whipper would be able to do this easily later on. This cream by the way smelt amazing. I was in heaven already and despite worrying about the apparent complexity of the dish, it was going well so far and I have to say probably led me into a false sense of security… I had the chocolate tempering to do next.
The ginger
Ginger cream
Tempering chocolate I believe is a process used to change the chocolate molecules so that they align differently and set at higher temperatures. It also gives the set chocolate a nice shiny sheen. The book suggests using the microwave to do this, and using my digital thermometer I had to heat up the chocolate to melt it and get it to 45 degrees celsius (Only 2 degrees over this was allowable apparently). I got it to 46.3 on my first attempt! Hurrah!
I then had to drop the temperature down to 27 degrees and then heat it back up quickly to 31 degrees, which once done needed to be maintained at that temperature. Let me tell you this was not easy, and my first attempt ended up with the chocolate seizing and I had to try again. Thankfully the second time worked and it was time to make the chocolate cylinders. I had some acetate sheets which I cut into rectangles and rolled up into cylinders. I then taped these together and put them into a ring mould to keep them upright. I then dribbled the chocolate down the inside of the acetate cylinders until they were entirely covered. Once done I left them to set in the fridge. To be honest I reckon they could have set out the fridge, but it was a really hot day when I did this and I didn’t trust the warm weather enough to chance it, especially after buggering up the first attempt.
Using some more acetate I spread some chocolate and then made circles out of it for the final plating.
Chocolate ready for tempering
Acetate moulds
More chocolate and acetate
Hard part done. How easy was that!? The next bit involved making the caramel rice crispies and I know what you are thinking because I thought the same thing… rice crispies!?!?! Well let me tell you they were delicious. I melted some caster sugar on the stove and chucked in the rice crispies to coat. I then set them out on a silicone sheet to cool, chopped them up, and then stored them for the final plating. Easy.
Rice crispies
Oh some looked burnt because they, umm, were. I didn’t use them though. Honest!
Finally I made a start on the mousse itself. This was not that different to how I have made mousses before. You melt the chocolate, prepare a pate a bomb (Heat sugar and water together until it reaches 120 degrees, then dribble this onto whipped up egg yolks whilst whisking like mad), whip up the cream and whip the egg whites. Fold in the chocolate, the cream then the egg whites and then it is done. Simple. As mentioned earlier, this is a long winded recipe, but in terms of execution so far I have not really had much of a problem. Sure, the tempering of the chocolate was a pain but it was hardly a difficult thing to do. I was feeling good.
Melting the chocolate for the mousse
It was time for the final plating. First of all I drew a line of chocolate along the plate for decoration. I then added some chopped up caramelised rice crispies and a scoop of ice cream. I then proceeded to peel away the acetate from the chocolate cylinders and… oh dear… it was a disaster. It was a mission to do this and you had to do it quickly as the longer you took the more the chocolate melted and started to crack. Needless to say it was not pretty and I ended up feeling mighty upset by the end of it. I even unleashed a series of words which even Gordon would be proud of. I was not happy.
I think the main problem was that my chocolate was too thin. I should have used a thinner diameter mould and doubled up on the chocolate when I added it to the acetate. I would then have managed it I reckon.
Still one managed to sort of come out of the acetate removal process intact… well by intact I mean there was a crack down the entire length of the cylinder and I knew that once I started filling it with the mousse etc it was just going to split and burst open, but I persevered anyway. I plonked it on the plate, added some mousse and then added a spoonful of coffee granita. I then charged up the cream whipper containing the ginger cream and added some of this on top of the granita.
And yes, the cylinder burst. I knew it was going to happen, but I still blurted out some choice words when it happened. Grumbling much better I presented the dish to my bevy of tasters. Wanna see it!?
Disaster on a plate
Not pretty at all I know. To say I was upset by this is a mighty understatement. So far I reckon I have done well with the dishes I’ve attempted, and they have all been presentable but this one looks like someone accidentally sat on it before being eaten. However, besides looking like a dog’s breakfast it did taste ridiculously good. It was stunningly good actually. The ginger cream/foam was so light and airy and had such a subtly hint of ginger that my previous irritations on the presentation quickly evaporated. This, together with the mousse was simply awesome. Oh and the coffee granita added that much needed kick, an explosion of taste which always goes well with chocolate and now I can tell you goes very well with ginger too. Why don’t they make ginger flavoured coffee???? They should.
The caramalised rice crispies and the milk icecream gave the dish some much needed balance in terms of texture and taste and it got me thinking. This is very much like a very VERY posh iced coffee with all the trimmings. Rather than fuss about with the tempered chocolate which in essence is just a vehicle to contain the mousse, why don’t you instead use a large espresso cup and layer each of the components in this… and this is exactly what I did. I got my espresso cup and added some ice cream, then some rice crispies, then some chocolate mousse, then some granita, then some ginger foam and finally to give it that little bit of flourish a sprinkling of cocoa powder. It looked just like a minute cappuccino. And it worked! It did not have the same visual appeal as the photo in the book, but the flavour is all there and it is a lot easier to prepare as well. It also had a quirky sense of humour about it which appeals to me… the fact that it is a chocolate dessert with coffee and whipped cream, served in a coffee cup 
I know, I know, a childish sense of humour perhaps, but food related puns are everywhere, just look at the Fat Duck restaurant’s menu, or even the French Laundry as well. Anything that makes you smile is a winner and I may just do it this way in future. I did mess about with using a shot glass instead so you could see the different layers (See the photo below)
Alternative presentation
… but the romance of using an espresso cup and getting the person eating the dessert to make their own discoveries as they make their way through the pudding layers is ultimately my style and something which I will probably do in future. I know I can get the tempering chocolate thing sorted in future, I just can’t be bothered at the moment. Besides it sometimes takes a failure in something to highlight an even better solution, and I think I have done just that.
Bitter chocolate mousse with coffee granita and light ginger cream… Done!
Next up: Raspberry and lemon millefeuille with basil, lime and milk ice cream
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