An addiction

obsession or just one of the major food groups...? ;-) If you haven't guessed already, it's chocolate! Gorgeous, wonderful, aromatic, smooth, delicious (ok, stop now!) chocolate... And in this case in the form of chocolate mousse. In fact, this recipe is a simple one that mainly involves whipping egg whites on one hand and melting chocolate on the other.. There's no whipped cream or gelatin or any of that, just a simple mix that'll be ready for consumption after a brief rest in the refrigerator. Ok, time to quit wasting time and get to the point.

100 g dark chocolate (46 % in this case)
5 tablespoons cream (any variety)
25 g butter
2 egg whites, whipped stiff

Optional: 1 tablespoon demerara sugar (the standard white stuff will also do nicely), this is simply in order to make it a little more child and family friendly. If however you prefer darker and richer omit the sugar and go for a 60 or 70% chocolate instead of the 46% used in this recipe). In fact, even the cream can be omitted for a darker richer mousse but if you omit the cream use 50 g butter instead of 25.

Over a low heat melt everything except the eggwhites and whisk until blended together and sugar is melted, should look something like this:

(click pic for larger size)

Take the chocolate mix off the heat and let it cool down, making sure to stir regularly to keep it soft. Take a couple of spoonfulls of egg white and mix gently into the chocolate mix first to make it softer (this way the chocolate mix will be easier to fold into the egg whites). Next, the chocolate mix should be folded gently into the egg whites. Transfer to serving dish or individual cups, bowls or whatever and leave to set in refrigerator for as long as you're able to wait (which in this household means an hour or two).

(click pic for larger size)

If any of you are wondering why there isn't any whipped cream or gelatin in this recipe it's for the simple fact that I want as little interference with the taste of the chocolate as possible and whipped egg whites seem to accomplish that much better than either whipped cream or gelatin.

Enjoy