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Dessert

Chocolate Mousse

A chilled dessert made from whipped cream, chocolate, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate base

  1. Whip the cream to a stiff froth and place it in a bowl over ice.

  2. Grate the chocolate, then mix it with powdered sugar and boiling water in a saucepan over heat until smooth.

  3. Add 6 tablespoons of whipped cream to the chocolate mixture and let it cool.

Fold and freeze

  1. Once cool, gently fold in 1 cup of powdered sugar and the remaining whipped cream, avoiding any liquid at the bottom.

  2. Pack the mixture into a mousse tin and wrap the edge with buttered muslin.

  3. Layer fine ice and salt around the mousse tin until covered, then freeze for 4 to 6 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve on very cold plates.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream
Whipped into a stiff froth, it traps air and gives the mousse its light, airy body.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and, once melted and cooled, firms the mousse as it sets.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mousse and dissolves smoothly into the chocolate and cream.

The step that matters

Folding in the cream and sugar. Cream is whipped to trap air, and overmixing or folding roughly knocks that air out, leaving a dense mousse. The chocolate must be cool first, or it will melt the cream and deflate the foam.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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