“This tastes like I have Christmas in my mouth!” Commented a friend of mine as she was giving me her opinion on the chocolate mousse, and she’s not wrong.
This allspice chocolate mousse in all its smoothness is delicious and along with the orange compote, that just cuts through that richness with it’s slightly sweet citrus flavour. The lemon infused crumble brings a freshness and crunch to tie it all together.
The first bonus part of this dessert is that it pairs well with the classic cocktail the Negroni, stick around for the second bonus.
This classic beauty of a drink can really quench your thirst on a hot day and I’ve been experiencing quite a few of those days lately.
The flavour profile of the drink for me has a bit of a liquorish taste with a touch of sweetness, and citrus, and is garnished with an orange peel but overall its a bitter drink.
The garnish of the orange peel made me think of a previous dessert pairing that I had done where I focused on presenting the orange in two ways inside of an orange shell.
The Negroni is made up of three ingredients:
- Campari
- Sweet Vermouth
- Gin
The flavour of Campari is what I mainly focus on to make the pairing work because of it strong flavour that makes the cocktail so flavourful
After some research I was a little surprised to find that chocolate works well with Campari and that’s when the idea of going with a chocolate mousse was decided.
I wanted to add a little twist to the chocolate by adding some allspice to it, from previous experience on a cake flavour that I curated in the early days of me starting my cake
business. The flavour is called the Spiced Velvet, my rendition on the red velvet cake, I’ll be sure to share it in the future.
Curating that cake showed me that all spice works well with liquorish flavours which is what I was experiencing with this drink and I came to the conclusion to add it to the chocolate mousse to create a little bit more of an interesting flavour that also kind of tastes like Christmas, according to my friend.
All spice Dark Chocolate Mousse
Ingredients
- Dark chocolate 250g
- Whole Eggs 2
- Egg yolks 3
- Castor sugar 50g
- Gelatin 4 leaves (gelatin powder-12g)
- Cream 500g
- Allspice 1 tsp
Directions
- Whip you cream till you get to medium to stiff peaks, and place it in your fridge to chill while you prepare the other ingredients
- Bloom your gelatin and set aside
- Melt your chocolate with the allspice other a double boiler
- Place all your eggs and sugar in a double boiler and whip till thick and pale in colour
- Melt your gelatin in the your sabayon (Egg and sugar mix)
- Mix through your melted chocolate into your sabayon and then pass through a sieve, to make sure that there are no lumps in the end product
- Fold through your chocolate mix into your whipped cream and then cover with cling film, make sure that it touches the mousse to prevent the a skin forming
- Chill in the fridge and wait for it to set.
- Once set it should be firm, you will the paddle with a mixer or with a spatula so that it is smooth and then it’ll be ready to use.
When plating this dessert I had in mind that with every bite you should have all the components on your spoon. This dessert is actually a deconstructed Tart, the crumble is from a tart base that I had made from a previous dessert that just didn’t have the correct height due to a freezing issue.
Instead of letting that go to waste I repurposed it in this dessert, it still had the refreshing delicious taste but just aesthetically couldn’t be used as a tart. The tart base was from my Papaya Tart dessert with a vanilla custard, click the link below to read about it
The orange compote is not very sweet, I took the segments of the orange and used brown sugar instead of white sugar just so that I could get a little bit of a darker colour to the end result, as well as a slight caramelized taste to it. The amount of sugar that I used was very minimal because I didn’t want it be very sweet. I used about a quarter cup of sugar to one large orange.
I mentioned earlier that there would be a second bonus to this dessert and here it is.
After testing out this recipe I just had so much left over especially since I didn’t have my partner around to make it disappear. I had the option to freeze it and turn it into a no churn ice-cream
It’s just perfect to beat the heat which is what I need at the moment.
You could choose to just serve it an ice-cream, that way you don’t have to worry about fancy plating styles.
Just be sure to let it thaw a little before scooping as it will be rock solid. The freezer that I have is quite cold so I had to thaw it for about ten to twenty minutes before serving.
I used the leftover compote and the crumble as toppings because why not.
One dessert served two ways and can be enjoyed with the classic Negroni, there really isn’t much more to ask for.
