V's Mousse au Chocolat

V made mousse au chocolat from a Julia Child's recipe. She figured I wouldn't be too keen on it except to taste two spoonfuls. The man would be an ardent supporter of her desserts. So V knew her jar to us would never be wasted. In fact, it was finished in two days.

There's no cooking required for the making of mousse. Raw egg yolks are involved. Yay. There was a lot of whipping to ensure a smooth creamy texture. She's probably really organized and fast because it seemed to have taken her a little under two hours to complete this batch. As V described the process of making the mousse, my eyes glazed over. I heard her, but the brain didn't understand the words. Hahahaha. All I remembered were, the mousse ought to be shiny, and she thought her version was a tad dense.

When I randomly googled, yeah, 'shiny' came up as a requisite for decent chocolate mousse, along with 'good chew'. Okaaay. This batch certainly fulfilled both requirements. V used a mixture of cacao at 80% and 72%. All the sugar effectively came from the rum. Oof. Many recipes suggest using Myers's rum. I'd strongly suggest not to. Not Bundaberg, Zacapa (but the Ron Zacapa Centenario 15, 23 or XO can), Captain Morgan or Mount Gay either, please. When a recipe only calls for egg yolk and whites, butter, cacao and rum, that rum is important. Never stinge on the rum. Use an aged rum since the dessert requires no baking. It makes all the difference to the taste. The biggest reason why I dislike most commercial rum and raisin ice-cream- the horrible rum used and the addition of weird sugar. A decent rum and raisin ice-cream doesn't need extra sugar. It needs damn good rum.

V's mousse au chocolat was nicely whipped, smooth and not too dense. Thick and creamy. It was redolent of dark chocolate with just a hint of spices in the dark Angostura 5 y.o rum used. Mmmm. Quite beautiful.