Super simple chocolate mousse

I remember vividly the first time I made chocolate mousse. The recipe involved making chocolate custard and then folding whipped cream into it. The preparation was lengthy as it required making and cooling the custard, then folding in the cream, and cooling it all again. Too long. Too complex, hence I always go for a simpler version.

This recipe uses tempered chocolate, and some rum-flavored whipped cream. Tempering the chocolate may be the most challenging job, but even that is done in under 10 minutes.

Ingredients:

• dark chocolate, 72% is good, about 3 to 4 oz
• approximately 3/4 cup heavy cream
• approximately 1-2 TBS rum
• 1 TBS sugar. Coconut sugar works nicely.

Procedure:

Heat about 1/2 inch water in a medium-size pan, maintain the heat at medium. Improvise a bain-marie by putting a metal bowl on top of the pan, so that the bowl is heated by the steam of the water. Add 3/4 of the chocolate to the bowl, stir with heat-proof spatula until the chocolate is melted.

To temper chocolate, take the bowl off the pan, add the remaining chocolate, and keep stirring an scraping until the chocolate cools to about the body temperature or a bit higher. This takes a few minutes. The bowl will originally be hot, so use an oven mit or a protective glove.

In a separate bowl add the sugar, rum, and the cream Whip the cream to a soft peak. Then fold in the tempered chocolate. Mix gently until the chocolate and the cream are incorporated.

At this point you can put the mousse into serving glasses and cool it in a fridge. On the other side of the spectrum, one can always eat the mousse right away.