Julia Child's Chocolate Mousse

This is recipe number two honoring Julia Child in the JC100 food blogging event! Julia's chocolate mousse or Mousseline Au Choccolat/Mayonnaise Au Chocolat is another recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1. 

This was my first time making chocolate mousse and it was a success! While following each step closely, it was interesting to see the mousse evolve from separate mixtures consisting of egg yolks and egg and combine to form this wonderful mousse in the end. Beating the egg yolks took a little longer than 3-4 minutes while cooking over heat. It did start to look like mayonnaise as Julia says in her recipe. This was very helpful information in knowing when to move on to the next step. The mousse texture obtains a light texture from this step and also from the egg whites. With a little whipped topping and some of my candied orange rind, you will really impress anyone you make this for! I think Julia would have been proud. I could taste a hint of the coffee (I used lavazaa), but neither I nor my dinner guests could taste the orange liqueur in the mousse. Total cooking time was approximately one and half hours. Well worth it! 

Ingredients

4 Eggs (yolks and whites separated)

3/4 cup confectioners sugar

1/4 cup orange liqueur (I used Grand Marnier)

6 oz. semi sweet chocolate (I used Ghirardelli)

4 tablespoons strong coffee (I used lavazza)

6 oz. or 1 1/2 sticks butter, softened

candied orange rind for garnish (optional)

whipped cream for topping (optional)

Instructions

Beat egg yolks and sugar until pale yellow and ribbon-like. Beat in orange liqueur. Beat over almost-simmering water until foamy and hot to touch. Beat over cold water until consistency of mayonnaise (about 5min.). Melt coffee with chocolate in small saucepan over heated water. Remove from heat and slowly add butter, a couple tablespoons at a time until creamy. Beat egg whites until soft peaks are formed. Stir one fourth of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and fold in the remaining egg whites. chill for 1-2 hours.

Pale yellow ribbony texture of the egg yolk mixture

Slowly mixing in the butter with the chocolate and coffee

Chocolate mixture combined with egg yolk mixture

Egg whites

Folding the egg whites with the chocolate mixture

Beautiful chocolate mousse!

Airy and chocolaty rich!

Bon Appetit!

Excerpted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. Copyright © 1961 by Alfred A. Knopf. Reprinted with permission from the publisher Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.