Slow Food Fast

Preface: Usually I’m at least a couple of days late discussing anything related to New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, or pretty much any celebration involving dessert. Partly because the January and February months–and into maybe April–are always the ones where people struggle to recover from the big food holidays. And obviously it’s been harder on most of us to feel buoyant, celebratory or romantic these past two years. But I worked really hard all last fall writing interviews and moderating high-profile author events for a book festival, then doing and redoing flights for my daughter, who graduated early but her travel program fell through at the last minute. This much later I’m still feeling pretty chewed up and in need of a reward… And my husband has a badly mis-scheduled board meeting tonight and thinks he shouldn’t be the first to bail.

So I don’t know about you, but I’ve decided I could use a kick right about now, something uplifting and energizing and frankly decadent, but without having to work hard now or pay the piper afterward. Something like all the Valentine’s Day-themed chocolate mousse recipes everyone’s starting to trot out in food media, only a lot faster, less bloated and more chocolate-powered, and–of course!–made mostly in the microwave. If I get heart palpitations I want it to be from exhilaration, not indigestion or overwork.

Even though it’s already 3:37 pm here and probably too late to help you much if you’re stuck on a Valentine’s Deadline on the east coast. Go with plain 5-minute ganache instead–and some champagne for tonight, and save this one for the weekend instead–if it’s the real deal, your romance or at least the shopping hijinks you want to get up to will still be there.

I actually came up with this recipe way back in August, as a distraction from my book festival duties, but really–who wants to be thinking about chocolate mousse in August? So I decided to save it for now, when it will do the most good. Or bad, because I’ve been good way too long. And then I came across not only Season 1 but also a book of the published original AbFab scripts. It was practically kismet, I’m telling you! So–pardon my excess while I find some bling to get into character...

THIS IS NOT your typical Meilleurs Oeuvriers de France high-concept mousse au chocolat. It’s not Hervé This, it’s not Pierre Hermé, it’s not Thomas Keller or Dominique Ancel. It’s not even the utter classic back-of-the-French-chocolate-bar-wrapper version that Dorie Greenspan quotes–and so, for that matter, does Alice Medrich. No name-dropping at all here (who, Moi?). Or at least no hyperlinks.

Just a tribute to a pair of troublemaking women who don’t cook at all, as far as I can tell, and a good thing too. But they aspire to everything this mousse is about–taste, time, fortune and fame, fashion superiority, basic naughtiness, and above all, a good time on a plate with no regrets the next morning.

So this is my take in honor of Absolutely Fabulous. It is very, VERY chocolate. And chic, despite my iffy photography and food styling abilities. And yet reasonably svelte. It will leave you quivering and swooning where you stand. This is what it’s all about, Sweetie.

Despite the fact that there’s no butter. No cream. And no crap. It’s not a heart attack in a tiny coupe (it only tastes like it, and maybe feels like it due to the high chocolate content). It’s not 450 calories and a day’s worth of saturated fat that goes right from your gallbladder to your hips, bypassing the heart as a lost cause.

You will not need to struggle into a larger pair of jeans [Season 1, Episode 2] after eating this, even if you manage to eat an entire quarter of it in one sitting without tottering to the couch and wishing you hadn’t and that you’d listened to me about Less being the New More.

This mousse au chocolat is so intense that even a spoonful or two is Almost a Religious Experience. At least if you’ve been fully vaccinated, you’ve been masking up (fashionably, as in, “LaCroix, Sweetie. La. Croix.“) instead of threatening your local chocolate purveyors and flight attendants, and thus your tastebuds still have their mojo. Because as everyone knows, breathing privileges and, just as important, flying privileges, are key to powershopping [Absolutely Special, aka AbFab in New York].

Once you recover from the chocolate rush, you will fan yourself, sip your bitter demitasse and your bottle of overpriced springwater, and leave the premises refreshed, overhyped and ready to shop for something sparkly as illustrated above–either completely garish, overpriced and pulled right from the runways with the tags still on…or, and we hope this is you, effortlessly elegant and sleek and elusively cool and yet still somehow totally rock ‘n’ roll, depending on whether you’re identifying with your inner Eddie or your inner Pats at the moment.

You will feel entitled, because the heady combination of making something like this mousse au chocolat mostly in the microwave, eating a petite portion in tiny refined bites and still being overwhelmed by the utter chocolatude of it all, without fearing the scale or the mirror the next morning, is the holy grail for those of us who worry secretly that we can’t really have it all.

Pardon me, I think Bvlgari is calling my name…

PS–EULA/legal disclaimer: the Management takes no responsibility for the shocking next-day surprise jewelry / footwear / custom marble courtyard sculpture bills you may have racked up in the heat of the moment. Or the return shipping and restock fees thereof.

PPS~~ ~~ THE ACTUAL FINE PRINT, ahem! ~~ ~~

Now…I did claim in the headline that this recipe is “faster” as well as lighter. And that’s…almost true. The key question is, compared to what? Because however you make chocolate mousse, you will have to give it several hours and preferably overnight in the fridge to set up properly. The only ones that set up in much less time contain either enough hard fats to solidify in an hour or so, which they will also do to your arteries, or else enough questionable fillers and thickeners to turn what should be an ethereal chocolate experience into dull, heavy American commercial chocolate pudding.

Part of the intrigue of chocolate mousse is the depth of flavor, but the other part is the texture. Getting it right is a little, though only a little, tricky to achieve with a significantly lighter reduced-fat, reduced-waistline version like this one.

My first attempt was almost right, and definitely fast, and really, really, really–I thought it would rock the first time out of the gate. It almost did. And of course I wish it had, because it would have been completely revolutionary.

I started with microwave ganache, amped up with cocoa powder to sub in for some of the bar chocolate–easy enough. Then I pivoted to microwave custard, easy and superfast, by dropping the egg yolks into the hot ganache and whisking and renuking immediately. So far, so good–thick, rich, smelling beautiful, and with the heat you’re reasonably well covered on the matter of egg safety. Do the same by folding in the beaten egg whites into the hot custard, I thought, waiting a minute and then rapid-cooling in an ice bath, and maybe you don’t have to use prepasteurized egg whites, which are more expensive, or else make a Swiss meringue. About five minutes from start to finish, no chaser, no waste, would be–Absolutely Fabulous. Wouldn’t it? and only two bowls plus the ice bath and a whisk.

I even went so far as to grate a bit of organic orange peel into the egg whites at the last. The dream and the taste–both divine.

The setup in the fridge wasn’t quite there, though, even the next day. It came out a little looser than I wanted, and the ethereal quality of chocolate mousse went slightly missing. Folding stiff egg whites into freshly hot custard had probably killed any risk of salmonella, but it also deflated the structure considerably after a while. It wasn’t completely stable in the fridge–so I froze it for a gelato, which was pretty good, actually, but it wasn’t mousse.

My second try was fussier–I did the near-Swiss meringue method Alice Medrich has used for pasteurizing egg whites, beating them with a spoonful of water and an extra tablespoon of sugar in a bowl over a skillet of simmering water to sterilize and stabilize them, and I also added a spoonful of cornstarch to the chocolate mixture–I know! not traditional!–but I had to test and find out. Would it work or would it end up tasting and textured like chocolate pudding?

This time the mousse stayed puffed beyond a doubt, and the next morning it had firmed up just enough to scoop and stay scooped. It was definitely chocolate mousse, though, not chocolate pudding–the bit of cornstarch hadn’t overdone it. A small test sample–the size of an egg, or maybe something you’d serve in shotglasses at a buffet–was really enough, too. Every millimeter of it was so intensely chocolate that it actually took me a few minutes to finish it in tiny, gelato spoon-style tastes, and I wasn’t automatically reaching for more. A little, or at least a little at a time, goes a very long way here–good news on the svelte front–and makes a big impression in a small cup, especially at the end of a meal.

The simmering egg whites trick, though–it only took about the same five minutes that beating egg whites the regular way did, but somehow it’s more pans to juggle and you’re at the stove, so slightly more fuss. And unfortunately it’s also easy to mess up.

The first time I did this back in August it worked fine and I assumed it always would and was ready to recommend it. But when I went back last night to do another batch to photograph (and then eat, of course), the egg whites overheated and kind of crumpled into little curdled bits. So I dumped them and used a carton of prepasteurized egg whites I’d bought from Trader Joe’s to test out for comparison instead. It really is less fuss and seems to work well without having to heat them. I have included the actual-egg white method below, in case you’re more advanced and don’t mind taking the chance, but let’s just consider that it’s not a sure thing.

So–on to the math. Show me the receipts!

NUTRITION STATS

Let’s ignore protein, fiber, iron and other lovelies this time around because this is a dessert, and we want to concentrate on the main damage-limitation stats we care about. All you need to know is that there is also actual protein, fiber and iron–at least a little–to justify your chocolate intake. So feel free to argue that eating chocolate gives you the strength to go on, or at least go shopping.

Despite all that, I’ve done the nutrition stats below to accommodate you for anything from 4 servings to 10, depending on your company and chocoholic tendencies.

Here in AbFab land, the carb counts are about the same as for the classic, ounce for ounce, but still quite reasonable for a dessert other than plain fruit. The fat and calorie stats, on the other hand, are a LOT lower even though the taste is definitely dialed up to 11.

For the full recipe, however you divide it, my nutrition label calculation gets us approximately (your chocolate brand may vary slightly and so might your taste for sweetening):

1102 calories, 36 grams total fat, 18 grams saturated fat, 150 grams carbohydrate

That may not look incredibly impressive on its own, but consider this:

The typical 4-serving chocolate mousse, no matter whose name is on it, runs about 450-475 calories per serving, with 36 grams of total fat and 18-plus (sometimes north of 30) grams of saturated fat, also per serving. Even cookbook and magazine recipes that call themselves “light” or “minçeur” or “légère” or “allégée”. To say nothing of my new favorite, “déculpabilisée,” which apparently is current magazine French for “guilt-free,” a morally flexible term if ever there were one. If only they were earning it.

The AbFab version: Each of 4 servings, about 1/2 c or 4 oz each (which as hinted above, is enough to cause personal earthquakes): 276 cal, 9 g total fat, 4.5 g sat fat, 38 g carb. That’s right. Half the calories, a quarter of the total and saturated fat, and even more chocolate power.

BY SERVING

Each of 4 servings, about 1/2 c or 4 oz each: 276 cal, 9 g total fat, 4.5 g sat fat, 38 g carb

Each of 6 servings: 184 cal, 6 g total fat, 3 g sat fat, 25 g carb

Each of 8 ~2-oz. servings: 138 cal, 4.5 g total fat, 2.3 g sat fat, 19 g carb

Each of 9 servings the size of a large egg, which is what I taste-tested: 122 cal, 4 g total fat, 2 g sat fat, 17 g carb

Each of 10 shotglass-size servings you’d probably need/want to amp up with fresh berries underneath and on top, and serve with tiny spoons, possibly with a few champagne bottles posed thematically somewhere in the background: 110 cal, 3.6 g total fat, 1.8 g sat fat, 15 g carb

…See? Déculpabilisée!

You can dress this mousse up with strawberry fans or raspberries or accessorize with a sliver or two of candied orange peel or ginger–or not. Eddie vs. Patsy here–Accessories ‘R’ Us vs. Less is the New More. Choose your own adventure.

I do recommend the (preferably decaf) demitasse and the water, though–you’ll want them to refresh your senses.

Enlightened Microwave Mousse Au Chocolat

4-10 servings, depending on mood, company or addiction level

• 65-ish grams (2.2 oz) chocolate at about 70% cocoa solids (I use Trader Joe’s Pound Plus bar and break off six thick 1″ squares, 11 grams apiece)
• 35 g cocoa powder–this is a lot more than you’d think, about 7 tablespoons or 1/3 cup by volume
• 60 g (about 4-5 flat T) granulated sugar (or to taste), 1 T of it for the egg whites unless you’re using pasteurized whites
• 1 c (240 g on a scale, or 240 ml) skim milk. Don’t overshoot the measurement or you’ll get soup.
• 1 flat T (10 g) cornstarch
• a drizzle, up to 1/4ish c. coffee, water or more skim milk, just as or if needed
• 2 large eggs, separated OR 2 egg yolks plus 90-95 grams commercially pasteurized egg whites to count for 2 whites (see NOTE in the instructions)
• 1 T water (skip this if using commercially pasteurized egg whites)
• Optional flavorings–grated organic orange peel from about 1/4 orange OR 1 T brandy or liqueur (amaretto, Cointreau, Kahlua, kirsch, etc.)

Equipment

• Microwave oven
• digital food scale–pretty helpful
• microwaveable 2-3 cup bowl (old-school Pyrex, vitrefied microwave-safe stoneware, whatever can go 3-5 minutes on HIGH without problems)
• balloon whisk, hand mixer or two forks for beating egg whites
• Stainless steel mixing bowl big enough to whip egg whites
• lightweight frying pan (not cast-iron) for simmering and/or sheet pan for the ice baths
• 2-3 cup snaplock container with a lid or individual serving glasses and some tinfoil or plastic wrap
• ice cubes or a frozen refreezeable ice pack

Start by weighing or measuring the cocoa powder, 45 of the 60 g sugar (i.e., all but 1 T), and the cornstarch into the microwave bowl. Weigh out the milk separately into a mug or measuring cup–you do NOT want to overshoot. Whisk the dry ingredients to blend, then pour in just a small splash of the milk, whisk furiously to get it all to a paste with no dry powder, add another splash and whisk to incorporate, then continue adding a bit more milk at a time, whisking thoroughly to make sure everything’s dissolved smoothly. This method prevents big lumps of powder from floating up.

Microwave on HIGH 2 minutes or until steaming hot. Add the broken-apart chocolate chunks and whisk thoroughly until the chocolate is fully melted in.

Add the yolks to the hot chocolate ganache while whisking thoroughly so they don’t curdle. If it’s still hot enough, the mixture should thicken immediately to a custard. Rinse the whisk well under the tap and microwave the chocolate mixture again one minute on HIGH to make sure the yolks are cooked in. Whisk again.

The custard should be very thick at this point. You want the hot mixture to be very thick but stirrable, smooth and just pourable–like brownie batter, not gelling or starting to pull into stretchy sheets that catch at the whisk. If it’s thin, whisk and nuke another 30 seconds. If it seems on the verge of solidifying at the edges or starting to get a little rubbery, thin it just a bit by whisking well and if necessary, drizzle in a few spoonfuls of cooled coffee, milk or water and any flavoring. Let the custard cool down a few minutes on the counter–this is key–while you whip the egg whites.

NOTE: You can do the egg whites in two ways.

Pre-pasteurized: Buy a carton of commercially pasteurized egg whites if you can find them in the supermarket, and then you don’t need to heat anything on the stove or add sugar and water to them. Shake the carton well, weigh out the amount it says for two egg whites (the TJ’s label said about 90-95 grams or 3 oz., but check yours) and just whip them until they hold a stiff peak.

OR

Heat-sterilize the whites left over from the eggs you separated for the ganache and whip them in a bowl over simmering water to pasteurize (necessary in the US these days, because we don’t have a hen vaccination program). And warning, this is tricky.

Fill a lightweight frying pan with 1/2-1 inch of hot tap water (for purposes of speed-heating) and set it simmering on the stove. Rinse the whisk off completely if you’re using it to beat the egg whites, or else use a hand-held mixer or two forks. Add a tablespoon of water and a tablespoon of sugar to the egg whites in the beating bowl and start whisking gently so the sugar dissolves and mixes in before you heat them. Set the bottom of the bowl just touching the surface of the simmering water while you whisk, holding it up with your non-beating hand, and tilt it as you beat so only a tiny corner of the underside of the bowl, maybe the size of a quarter at most, is touching the surface of the hot water at any time. It definitely should not be sitting down in the frying pan where it can overheat–you don’t want scrambled eggs. Keep the egg whites moving fast so they don’t get a chance to cook and set–whisk them constantly over heat for 3-4 minutes by the clock, until they reach soft peaks. Remove the bowl from the hot water and turn off the stove, and keep beating the egg whites another minute or so until they cool down and reach stiff peaks.

Empty the frying pan carefully into the sink, run cool water over it until it’s at room temperature, fill it less than half an inch deep with cold water and set it on the counter or a cool burner and stick ice cubes or a freezer ice pack in the water. If all you have is cast iron and it won’t cool down for a while, obviously just use another bowl, sheet pan or container for a shallow ice bath.

Stir the bowl with the chocolate custard and test a drop on your palm–it will still be warm but should not be actively hot. You want it cooled down enough at this point not to collapse the whipped egg whites, whether prepasteurized or homebrew. If it’s still hot, stir it a bit more and definitely give it a few more minutes. When it’s ready, whip the whites another few strokes to refresh them to stiff peaks again, and dollop a quarter of them onto the chocolate.

Use the whisk or forks, a rubber spatula or a big soup spoon to fold them in, using big but gentle strokes that scoop all the way down to the bottom of the chocolate bowl and bring the chocolate up and over the egg foam a few times until the egg whites just disappear into the mixture and make it a little less heavy. Then quickly scoop out the rest of the egg whites onto the chocolate and fold again, turning the bowl each time so you get it mixed in the fewest strokes possible without deflating the egg whites. If the whisk isn’t getting all the chocolate up from the bottom of the bowl in one stroke, use a spatula or soup spoon instead. Scoop the mousse as gently as possible into the snaplock container or pour into individual cups, put on the lid or plastic wrap or foil, and sit the bottoms gently in the ice bath to quick-chill. When the mousse is thoroughly cooled, dry the outsides with a towel and put it in the fridge to set overnight or at least 3-4 hours.

And Happy Valentine’s Day! Bon appétit, בטאון, mangia bene, eat nice, and as Patsy would say, “Cheers, Sweetie!”

Filed under: Desserts, Food TV, haute cuisine, Microwave tricks, nutrition, Revised recipes, shopping | Tagged: chocolate, Desserts, food, French cuisine, low-fat cooking, recipes |