Chocolate Mousse with Raspberries (Ultimate Makeover BBC Goodfood recipe): Friday Challenge!

I feel like this year is going really quickly, I can’t believe it’s already April let alone already being Easter! I’ve been married 6 months this weekend (yay) which feels like it’s flown by,  speaking of weddings I pre scheduled this Friday challenge post because I am at Scott’s cousins wedding today in the midlands. Congratulations Gemma and Nathan I hope today is truelly perfect for you!

I spent last weekend shopping for a new outfit for their wedding and as usual came home feeling stressed and over heated after battling the hundreds of other people that decided to go into town as well. I’m not a great shopper anyway as I get bored and tired easily but when your also trying to dodge screaming kids, pushchairs, slow walkers and huddles of teens it can be quite an assault course! Anyway I got a lovely outfit and also found a beautiful pashmina (scarf) reduced from £20 to £3!! When I got home I needed a treat and then remembered I’d put this weeks Friday Challenge in the fridge to set! I think maybe I will enjoy this month’s Friday Challenge after all….

I chose to make a chocolate mousse as my first recipe for April’s Friday Challenge because I had never made one before, and it looked quite simple! I chose Angela Nilsen’s recipe from the BBC Goodfood website because she had made a low fat version which suited me just fine! You can see the recipe and comments from other people who have made this recipe here.

The first thing to say about this chocolate recipe is that it really was easy to make! Also, I feel really silly admitting this, but I was amazed at what happened to an egg white after being whisked. I’ve seen people whisk egg whites to make a meringue on cookery shows on tv before but for some reason it just didn’t register in my mind that that’s how a  mousse is so airy. I have to admit I think my mousse looks a little flat because I got really bored of whisking the egg white! Also when I added the sugar I think I may have not whisked it enough because it’s still a little grainy…I was afraid of over working the egg but next time I’ll work a bit harder! It was still quite fluffy though.

I liked the addition of coffee, it helped give it a richness but it also made the mousse a bit too strong with the flavour of the dark chocolate as well. I think I’ll leave it out next time.

The raspberries were a nice touch though and I’d recommend using those when serving the mousse as it was a nice sweetness.

What have I learnt about Chocolate?

Well I learnt that chocolate and raspberries are nice together…although I kind of already guessed this! I learnt that egg whites are amazing and when whisked they become light and fluffy! I also learnt that by watching a lot of cooking on tv I knew what “whisk untill you have soft peaks” and “Fold the mixture” meant so that’s a bonus!

This was definitely a good starter recipe for me and I feel great that it was a simple healthy recipe too 🙂 I already feel like I have learnt heaps more about the pudding world just from making a mousse 🙂 no more shop bought mousse for us now!

ps do you like my pudding glasses? I bought them from a charity shop a while back (50p each!) and I love them. They’re so retro they look like they’re out of the 70’s!