Recipe: Chocolate Mousse with Passion Fruit Sauce

Cookbook

Chocolate Mousse
with Passion Fruit Sauce

This light cream filling can be prepared using all three types of couverture.

Serves 4

For the mousse:
7 oz couverture*
5 eggs, separated
Scant 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cream
2 tablespoons vanilla sugar
3 tablespoons strong coffee

For the passion fruit sauce:
6 passion fruits (1/2 cup fruit flesh)
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons white wine
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon gelatin

For the raspberry cream:
3 oz fresh raspberries
1/2 cup cream
2 tablespoons sugar

You will also need:
4 little baskets made of couverture*
Raspberries to decorate

mousse

To make the mousse, melt the couverture over hot water. Whip the egg whites with the sugar until stiff. Whip the cream. Beat the egg yolks with the vanilla sugar until frothy and mix in the coffee. Stir in the couverture, blend in the cream using a whisk, and fold in the stiff egg whites immediately. Transfer to a large bowl and refrigerate to set.

Cut the passion fruits in half and remove the flesh with a spoon. Place in a saucepan with the water, white wine, and sugar. Bring to a boil and reduce the liquid by a third. Strain. Dissolve the gelatin in the liquid, stirring briskly. Allow to cool.

purée the raspberries and strain them. Whip the cream with the sugar, fold in the raspberry purée, and spoon into a pastry bag with a large star tip. Place two scoops of the mousse on each plate.

Place the chocolate baskets beside them and pipe in a portion of raspberry cream. Spoon passion fruit sauce onto the plate and decorate with raspberries.

To make chocolate baskets:

Cover any hemispherical shape 3 inches in diameter with foil, and smooth out all the wrinkles. Using a paper pastry bag, pipe random strands all over the surface. When hard, remove from the foil.

From:
The Chocolate Bible
by Christian Teubner, Karl Schuhmacher, Leopold Forsthofer, Eckart Witzigmann and Sybil Grafin Schonfeldt
Penguin Studio, $29.95 / Hardcover
240 Pages; 1997
ISBN 0-670-87371-3
Recipes and photos reprinted by permission.

More Chocolate Mousse Recipes

*Couverture—According to the Food Lover's Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst, couverture is very glossy, professional-quality coating chocolate, usually found in specialty candy-making or baking supply shops. It usually contains a minimum of 32 percent cocoa butter, allowing it to form a thinner shell than ordinary chocolate.