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Dessert

Chocolate-mousse

A chilled dessert made with chocolate, vanilla syrup, whipped egg white, whipped cream, sugar, vanilla, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate-mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate base

  1. Soften the chocolate at the mouth of the oven.

  2. Work the chocolate with a spoon until smooth.

  3. Warm the chocolate and mix in the syrup flavored with vanilla.

  4. Gradually introduce the whipped and sugared egg white.

Mould and chill

  1. Pour the mixture over the whipped cream, flavored with sugar and vanilla.

  2. Fill a domed mold with the preparation and set it on pounded ice.

  3. Cover the mold with ice and keep it for an hour.

Serve

  1. Before serving, dip the mold in tepid water and dish the mousse on a folded napkin.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chocolate
Provides the rich flavor and, once cooled, the body that holds the mousse together.
Egg white
Whipped foam adds air, giving the mousse its light, airy texture.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and air, making the mousse soft, smooth and creamy.

The step that matters

Gradually introduce the whipped and sugared egg white. Adding whipped egg white in stages, folding gently, keeps the air bubbles intact. Dumping it in at once or stirring hard deflates the foam and leaves the mousse dense.

“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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