April 2006

Chocolate Mousse With A Spiced Red Wine Syrup

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We will start this recipe with the syrup. Into a pan we poured a bottle of red wine. This does not have to be the best you can get but I would try to avoid the really cheap stuff. Into the wine we added a stick of cinnamon, three stars of anise, about ten cloves and three bay leaves.

We brought the wine slowly up to the boil, reduced the heat and then simmered the wine till about half of it had evaporated. We then poured the wine through a strainer to remove all the bits and then back into the saucepan and placed it back on the heat. We again reduced the wine by about a third and then stirred in about 750g of sugar.

I prefer to use demarera sugar but you can use white. Once the sugar had completely dissolved the wine was removed from the heat and allowed to cool. Once it has chilled you need to check the consistency. If the syrup is very thin you will need to bring it back to the boil and add more sugar, if the consistency is too thick you will need to bring it back to the boil and add a little more wine. This is now ready. If it stored in an air tight container this will now last for weeks so can be made well in advance.

Now we need to look at the chocolate mousse. We made ours in 8cm round moulds. We lightly brushed the inside of the mould with a little oil and then placed them on a tray and lined them with Clingfilm. The oil helps the Clingfilm stick to the inside of the moulds and stop falling down. Into the bottom of each ring we put a chocolate cookie. This was one that was quite soft in the middle. You can use a more biscuit like cookie, as this will add some crunch when you eat the mousse.

The mousse it self is very simple to prepare. We melted 225g of chopped plain chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water. In the bowl was also half a glass of red wine. Stir while the chocolate is melting and when soft and smooth remove from the heat and beat in30g of soft butter. We then added three lightly beaten egg yolks.

At this point the mixture will thicken. Place to one side and allow to cool. Meanwhile, in a clean bowl we whipped up three egg whites. When they were still a little soft we added a pinch of salt and then carried on whipping them until they started to go stiff. We added three tbsp of castor sugar, one spoon at a time, until the egg whites were glossy and stiff but not too dry.

We removed about a fifth of the chocolate mix and kept to one side. We added one large spoon of the egg whites to the remaining chocolate and gently folded them in. then we poured that mixture back into the rest of the egg whites and gently folded the mix until the mix was even. We then poured the chocolate and egg mix into the lined moulds with the cookies at the bottom. We placed them into a fridge and allowed them to cool and begin to set. At this point we carefully spooned the remaining chocolate mix onto the top.

That was it. All of this process can be done in your food processor or with an electric whisk. You can decorate the mouse however you like but I have used a few raspberries, a shake of icing sugar and a stick of white chocolate.

You can adapt this recipe by replacing the red wine with 65ml of espresso coffee and then adding either 30 ml of brandy, rum or orange liqueur when you add the soft butter. I hope that you will enjoy it.

Paul Vincent, Head Chef.