What’s the secret to great chocolate mousse? | Kitchen aide

For a dessert with just three basic ingredients, mousse-making certainly has its fair share of snags. Our panel of experts unpicks them one by one

I always order chocolate mousse in restaurants, but it never turns out quite right when I make it at home. Help!
Daniel, by email
“Chocolate mousse defies physics,” says Nicola Lamb, author of Sift and the Kitchen Projects newsletter. “It’s got all the flavour of your favourite chocolate, but with an aerated, dissolving texture, which is sort of extraordinary.” The first thing you’ve got to ask yourself, then, is what kind of mousse are you after: “Some people’s dream is rich and dense, while for others it’s light and airy,” Lamb says, which is probably why there are so many ways you can make it.

That said, in most cases you’re usually dealing with some form of melted chocolate folded into whipped eggs (whites, yolks or both), followed by lightly whipped cream. And, with so few ingredients, you need to make them count, Lamb says: “What you’re doing by making chocolate mousse is extending the flavour of the chocolate, so first off always go with a bar you really like.” And, for her, that means 70% dark chocolate.

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