Baking for the Firemen - Well, Sort of: Chocolate and Strawberry Mousse

The firemen had their annual awards dinner last weekend and I wanted to make something different. When I send in the treats for the meeting it has to be something the men can eat with their hands so this time I decided to make mousse. I went for a layered mousse - chocolate and strawberry. I didn't have a pretty bowl to show it off but it tasted really good so that's what counts, right?

I made two batches of the chocolate and one of the strawberry. I was a bit leery of the strawberry mousse recipe I found and I wasn't completely happy with it and I think if I do this again I will go with my instincts and make it just like the chocolate mousse.

The chocolate mousse was just a classic recipe. I melted 7oz of bittersweet chocolate in a double boiler.

While that was melting I whipped 1 1/3 cup of heavy cream to soft peaks.

I also whipped three egg whites 'til foamy then slowly added 2oz sugar, a pinch of salt and 1 tsp vanilla until they were to the stiff peak stage.

I then added the slightly cooled, melted chocolate to the egg whites, folding it until well mixed. Then I folded in the whipped cream.

Aaaah, deliciously smooth, decadent chocolate mousse!
I put this in the bottom of the bowl.


Then I made the strawberry mousse. For this I added 2 TBS powdered gelatin to the warmed juice of a lemon. I had thawed some strawberries in syrup, cooked them down a bit and put them through a strainer until I had a bowl of delicious berry juice. To that I added 2 cups of powdered sugar. I mixed these two together. (I forgot to take a picture of that.)

I whipped a cup of heavy cream and I folded that in to the mixture and put it on top of the first chocolate layer.

I then made a second batch of the chocolate mousse and put it on top.

The chocolate mousse recipe came from my Fundamental Techniques of Classic Cuisine cookbook and is a basic mousse recipe. It was perfection. The strawberry mouse recipe I found on the internet and it was OK but as I mentioned I won't make it this way again.


Lesson learned. Not that it didn't get eaten. We are talking three batches of mousse in one bowl and there wasn't much left to come home. And this was only one dish in a dessert buffet.  


We will not discuss how much of it I ate....