How to cook chocolate mousse

[aliettedb]

A typical kitchen conversation between me and the H (a little bit of context first: we’ve been making biscuit Joconde , a moist sponge cake dough that is used as the basis for many fruit desserts. The recipe we have calls for 3 eggs and 3 egg whites, leaving us with extra egg yolks):
The H: “What can I do with three extra egg yolks?”
Me, googling and perusing a webpage of recipes “Er. Mayonnaise? Aioli? Pasta carbonara? Chocolate mousse?”
The H, paging through our big book of desserts; “Chocolate mousse. Ah no, that’s got cream.”
Me: “You can substitute coconut cream for cream.”
I really should have looked at the recipe before saying this. An hour later and the H is busy mixing eggs and coconut cream, and desperately trying to get the mixture to set.
The H: “Are you positive you can substitute cream and coconut cream?”
Me, getting up and finally looking at the recipe: “Er. Maybe not. And you know that next bit where you beat the cream until it’s solid?”
The H: “Don’t tell me. It doesn’t work with coconut cream.”
Me: “Probably not.”
The H, after another half hour of beating up eggs and coconut creams, staring at a very liquid chocolate mousse. “Hahahaha. Tell you what, I’ll throw it in the freezer.”
And that is how we ended up having chocolate-coconut ice-cream for New Year’s Eve (it does freeze beautiful, actually. The H says he’ll make a note of the recipe for future snakelet consumption).

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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