Episode 16 – White Chocolate Mousse Cake

Episode 16
September 13, 2010
White Chocolate Mousse Cake

One of the most interesting things I’ve ever read about chocolate is something Chef Jim Graham said in the book Grand Finales: The Art of the Plated Dessert by Tish Boyle and Timothy Moriarty.  He said “It’s as if the chocolate has a memory.”  He was referring to the dessert he made for the book which required melted, slightly warm white chocolate to be in a container of coffee beans to absorb the aroma as a flavor.  While this recipe doesn’t require aerating chocolate with aromatics, I do like the idea that chocolate has a memory in the sense that chocolate marries well with many other flavors.  There’s something magical about the way chocolate pairs well with so many different flavors – spicy (chili powder), sour (chocolate dipped fruit, chocolate dipped candies), sweet (chocolate bars, ice cream), savory (mole), salty (chocolate dipped pretzels), bitter (dark chocolate, coffee), as well as the multitude of spices and flavors such as wine, mint, and cinnamon.  With the recipe I’m presenting in this video I pair passion fruit with a light and airy white chocolate mousse (as well as chocolate cake).

This combination was taught to me and my classmates in school.  Most people were going for the ordinary pairings, like chocolate with raspberry or strawberry (though some did choose to do kiwi), but when my chef suggested passion fruit I was intrigued.  I’ve always been the kind of person to try something new.  The results were amazing.  This tiny thin, barely there, strip of passion fruit glaze made the white chocolate alive and new again – it was like I was eating white chocolate for the first time.  From that point on, trying new things and experimenting with flavors became a passion of mine.

White chocolate isn’t truly chocolate – not in the literal meaning.  White chocolate is purely cocoa butter without the cocoa liquor (the component in chocolate that makes dark chocolate taste more intense than milk chocolate, for example).  Without both cocoa butter and cocoa liquor what you have is not chocolate.  For example – if you’re in the grocery store and you see something called chocolate morsels check the ingredients – make sure it has cocoa butter because chocolate morsels may have the cocoa butter removed.  White morsels are usually huge culprits of this not having even a drop of cocoa anything in it.  Check the label!  Usually it’s just a conglomeration of oils solidified with milk solids and sugar.  Make sure when you get white chocolate for this recipe that the label has cocoa butter explicitly written on it.

What’s the advantage of having the cocoa butter removed if it’s not real chocolate?  Wouldn’t most people be offended by such a hoax?  Well yes and no.  Did you mind using morsels before you read this?  Do you still enjoy the taste of morsels?  I do.  You like what you like so enjoy it!  Another advantage is cocoa butter requires skill to work with.  Cocoa butter does not solidify well without agitation so if you melt it down and let it harden back up you’ll get a weak product with a gray effect on it (called fat bloom).  In order to have a nice product you have to control the fat crystallization with agitation – something most people don’t know how to do or don’t feel like doing (sometimes I don’t feel like dealing with it).  When you replace the cocoa butter with oil, especially with white morsels, you can dip things in chocolate or create simple chocolate work that will set up properly without any extra work.

The problem comes in when you really want to use real chocolate.  Real chocolate (cocoa liquor + cocoa butter) has a crisp snap to it when it sets up especially when it’s cool (with the exclusion of milk chocolate/white chocolate which may be a little softer than dark chocolate because of the milk fat).  It’s also strong (cocoa butter holds up pretty well even when piped in thin delicate designs and propped up), typically has a better and more realistic flavor, and has an excellent mouth-feel.  What this means is cocoa butter melts right around body temperature.  This means that the slow decadent melt that you experience when you eat chocolate cannot compare to any other oil substitute.  Those substitutes used to replace cocoa butter tend to melt above your body temperature, leaving your mouth and stomach with a greasy uneasy feeling.

Well that was quite a tangent!  As much as I love to talk about chocolate to be honest, I’m not a chocolatier.  Chocolate is a pain.  However, chocolate mousse is not!  So, don’t be afraid to try this recipe.  It’s fairly simple but requires a lot chill time.  The mousse needs to firm up over night and the glaze needs around 2-3 hours to really firm up on top (though if you pour a very thin layer, 1 hour could be all you need).

Now with this recipe as I was making it I did notice a few things that I may do differently next time.  It probably would’ve been a good idea to bloom and melt the gelatin, melt the chocolate, boil the milk, add the gelatin to the milk, then the milk to the chocolate, and then tempered the eggs.  This would make sure that there were no pieces of unmelted chocolate.  When I was adding the chocolate to the tempered egg yolks, the milk had lost most of it’s heat so I became concerned that the chocolate would not melt into the milk – luckily it worked but you don’t have to worry I’ve made the change in the recipe already for you.

Another change would be the glaze.  When I tasted the passion fruit and white chocolate in class the passion fruit had a pronounced taste but when I tried mine today the passion fruit was very delicate.  I tried the juice and I thought the flavor was was pretty strong.  There were a couple of things though I needed to take into account.  First, in class we used passion fruit pulp – which is pure passion fruit – while the juice has water and high fructose corn syrup somewhat diluting the flavor.  Second, in class we used gelatin sheets which bloom differently than granulated gelatin – gelatin sheets are only available commercially or rarely otherwise so don’t go crazy trying to find them – granulated gelatin holds on to more water than the sheets do so that further dilutes the flavor.

To make up for this I should have reduced the juice to concentrate and intensify the flavor – all that means is that I should’ve boiled out more water.  Remember though that if you reduce your juice when you make this at home that you want to still have 7 ounces of juice – so start off with a high amount like 12 ounces and reduce it to 7 or more ounces.  This will make sure your gelatin doesn’t become super rubbery because there wasn’t enough liquid to balance it out.  In fact, that may have been another issue.  My miroir glaze was a little rubbery – so for the recipe you have available to download I reduced the amount from 3/8 oz to 1/4 oz.  When the gelatin sets up so tough, it’s difficult for flavor to be released which again dilutes the flavor.

It’s important to understand how ingredients, and techniques, work in your recipes so that you can alter the recipe to better suit your tastes.  Anybody can follow a recipe and bake without thinking but it takes skill to alter a formula and get expected results.  I think it’s important that even home bakers understand how to alter a recipe because successfully customizing a recipe is what helps makes it your own.  If you ever need help finding a substitute ingredient or understanding how an ingredient works feel free to use the e-mail submission form on the right!  I promise I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can, though please don’t expect anything immediate!  I don’t want you to be in the middle of  a recipe and wait for my response before continuing.

UPDATE: Alina was kind enough to share her amazing photos of her white chocolate mousse + dark chocolate mousse cake!  Amazing work Alina – your photo skills totally surpass my own as well lol  Beautiful work!

Anyway, here is the recipe for the white chocolate mousse cake. It includes the chocolate cake recipe, the mousse, and the miroir glaze.  Enjoy the videos below!