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Mousse, Chocolate Instant (D, TNT)
Source: Nigella Lawson
Serves: 4 to 6

3 cups mini-marshmallows
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
9 oz. best quality semisweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
1/4 cup hot water from a recently boiled kettle
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Put the marshmallows, butter, chocolate, and water in a heavy-based saucepan.

Put the saucepan on the stove, over heat, though keep it fairly gentle, to melt, stirring every now and again. Remove from the heat.

Meanwhile whip the cream with the vanilla until thick and then fold into the cooling chocolate mixture until you have a smooth, cohesive mixture.

Pour or scrape into 4 or 6 glasses or small dishes and chill until you want to eat. The sooner the better!

Author's Notes:
Normally, you need to make chocolate mousse a good few hours, or better still a day, before you want to eat it, so that the egg yolk sets and the whisked whites permeate everything with air bubbles. Forget that: here we have no yolks, no whites, no whisking, no waiting. Lack of raw egg, incidentally, also means that you might be happier giving the mousse to small children, though I certainly feel they should not be the only beneficiaries.

Poster's Notes:
I just came upon this Nigella Lawson Food Network recipe, that looks interesting for those of us who avoid making chocolate mousse with raw eggs. I haven't tried it, so I can't vouch for it myself, though it received pretty good reviews on the site. It's dairy, but maybe substitutions can be made successfully. If anyone tries it before I do, please share your feedback.

Judy Hochsztein wrote:
I tried this recipe. It wasn't quite as simple as advertised because the kosher mini-marshmallows did NOT take well to melting, so i had to add the chocolate mix into the whip cream and beat it (for a long time!) until the texture was good.

The texture was a bit tougher than i would have liked, BUT--it tasted great! I would try it again with marshmallow fluff and NOT MELT it with the chocolate.

Amelia Schmidt wrote:
Also, just as a quick FYI--before calling this an "eggless mousse," realize that if someone is actually avoiding eggs (allergies), marshmallows have eggs in them. I understand what the point of this is, but it can be misleading to say an item doesn't have an ingredient when one of those ingredients has that item.

Posted by Barbara Kaplan

Nutritional Info Per Serving: N/A