Hello and welcome to week 5 of the All Day Cake Great British Bake Off bake along - what a mouthful! It’s chocolate week in the tent and do I have some chocolatey recipes for you! I was really excited for chocolate week but whew, these challenges were tough why are they doing the bakers so dirty this year!?
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Chocolate mousse cups seems like a reasonable challenge at first until you realise that they want the bakers to make tempered chocolate cups AND add a baked element. I was pretty impressed by everything the bakers made for this challenge, I especially loved both of the tiramisu cups! For this week’s free recipe we’re making a super light and fluffy chocolate mousse - the perfect way to use up all of your egg whites and if you fancy a bigger bake with a more sturdy mousse, I’ve linked one of my favourite chocolate cake recipes.
Big Fat Chocolate Mousse Cake (paid), Egg White Chocolate Mousse (free - recipe below)
Technical
What the hell? I don’t understand why they seem to have completely given up on giving the bakers any sort of recipe for the technical challenges. I am a professional pastry chef of over 12 years and I use my sweet pastry recipe constantly, even I don’t know this recipe off the top of my head, it seems insane to be asking amateur bakers to make a tart with no recipe at all. And then to add insult to injury they also have to come up with their own flavour combinations, give them a break! I long for the days when they got a normal recipe for the technical challenge.
Anyway, if you want a white chocolate tart recipe that comes with actual instructions, I have spent the week developing this White Chocolate & Crème Fraîche Custard Tart recipe with a hazelnut wholemeal pastry and optional blackberries if you fancy something fruity.
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Showstopper
Even after having watched this episode twice, I’m still a bit confused about what the judges wanted here. An edible chocolate sauce display? Please, please I am begging them to set challenges that normal home bakers would actually make. Some of these displays were quite impressive but none of them made me think yum, I want to eat that. Aaron’s piano was amazing as was Tom’s lighthouse.
Chocolate Chats Part 2 (all about tempering, free)
Onto today’s recipe…
Most of the time when I make chocolate mousse, I’m making it as an element in a larger bake, these kinds of mousses are delicious but they need a decent amount of structural integrity. I wanted to make a super, super fluffy mousse like the ones that you can buy in pots from the supermarket (only nice).
This mousse has the added advantage of using up egg whites, I always seems to have an excess of whites and there’s only so much Swiss meringue buttercream a girl can make. If you’re nervous of raw eggs, you can use pasteurised egg whites instead.
Extra Fluffy Choc Mousse
Ingredients - Makes 6 portions
90g 70% dark chocolate* - I used Valrhona
60g 40% milk chocolate - I used Valrhona
100g whipping cream
Pinch of salt
100g egg whites
30g caster sugar
Pinch of cream of tartar
*This mousse has quite a soft set, it’s really important that you use the chocolate percentages no lower than the ones stated in the recipe, a lower percentage of cocoa solids will result in a totally different texture.
Method
Combine the chocolates, whipping cream and salt and gently melt to about 35°C/95°F.
Whisk the egg whites until starting to foam, then shower in the sugar and cream of tartar. Whisk until soft peaks form (see GIF for perfect texture).
In thirds, gently old the meringue through the ganache base.
Set in cups or in a large serving dish.
This mousse will keep for up to 3 days in the fridge.
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how tf did u make ur post icon a gif wthhhhh