In honour of Chocolate Month (aka April) I present you: the chocolate mousse! I decided to only publish chocolate recipes this month. It’s not really difficult for me since I love chocolate so much! This is a classic dessert of mine, I learned to do it when I was a teenager.
A word of advice: there is literally as many recipes of chocolate mousse as there is different type of chocolate. Some are light and soft, other are creamy and runny, mine is thick, strong and dense. It’s not for the fainted heart as it is really intense in chocolate flavours.
It requiers only 3 ingredients: eggs, chocolate and a bit of sugar. I really advise you to take the best ingredients that you can afford, it will really help the success of the chocolate mousse. If you want to use milk or white chocolate, don’t add sugar, it will be too much! The eggs are not cooked so you can keep the mousse in the fridge for about 2 to 3 days no more. Honestly, it’s so good that it will not last this long!
I remember cooking this chocolate mousse when I was a teenager and I was invited to a party: always a crowd pleaser! It’s been way too long that I haven’t done it, now I want to experiment a bit with the taste and the texture, I have a few ideas for next time.
The Recipe
- 6 egg whites
- 200gr dark chocolate
- 30gr sugar
- Whip the egg whites until firm with an electric hand mixer.
- Melt the chocolate at low heat then add the sugar.
- Pour the chocolate over the egg white mousse by carefully mixing with a flat spatula.
- Pour the mix in a big bowl or individual ramequins.
- Let rest in the fridge for 3 hours
- If you use milk or white chocolate, don’t add sugar
- You can keep it in the fridge for 2 to 3 days
- You can use the yolks to do a custard cream or a crème brûlée for instance
Photography
I wanted a clean minimalist look for this set. The brown of the chocolate mousse would be the only colour in the photo. In order to achieve that look I choose a white marble background and contemporary props. Since everything was going to be very white, I wanted strong shadows so I used a stripped box.
The mousse texture was my main problem. I’m not going to lie, under a bad light, a chocolate mousse can really looks like poop. Using a flattering light (Backlight) that creates lots of highlights (hence the whole ramequin is not completely brown) is the solution. Since my studio is so tiny it was a bit hard to create but I’m really pleased with the result.
Without a good lighting, this really look like poop… 
Very Simple setup
Also, the editing was tricky because of the high contrast between the white of the background and the browns of the chocolate mousse. I had to be extra careful with the colours so it doesn’t look off.
Overall it was a great photoshoot, I enjoyed working on it and I think I have one or 2 really strong images perfect for my portfolio!
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