Random Recipe Wednesday: 2-Ingredient Chocolate Mousse

Just chocolate and water.  That's it.  No heavy cream.  No butter.  No sugar.  That can't really work, can it?  Normally when melting chocolate you should avoid water at all costs.  Just a little water and the whole thing will seize up, turning to a grainy, lumpy mass.  Needless to say the idea of purposely adding water to my chocolate to create mousse was quite intriguing.

After a little digging I learned the method originally comes from Hervé This, the father of molecular gastronomy.  There's no need for me to reinvent the wheel here.  A quick Google search will link you to multiple blog posts (like this one) featuring this simple mousse.  I'm just popping in to tell you I finally tried it, and it worked.  You should try it too.  Because clearly, since we're making mousse with water instead of heavy cream and butter, we can call it healthy and justify eating one silky spoonful after another.  

In short, you melt chocolate and water then whip it over an ice bath until the desired consistency is reached.  Or you might whip it over a bag of frozen vegetables if you're out of ice.  Just saying.  Depending on your chocolate to water ratio and the amount of whipping effort you put in, you can end up with thinner pudding-like consistency or a thicker scoopable consistency.  If you're not pleased with the final outcome simply remelt and re-whip, though you can't really go wrong with rich, fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate.  As you can see mine turned out more like a firm truffle the first time, perfect for scooping but not as mousse-like as I intended.  I melted it back down, added a few tablespoons of water and then whipped it for a slightly shorter time.  After that it pretty much went straight from bowl to mouth quicker than two clicks of a camera. End of story.  

There was some sort of weird magnetic attraction between my finger and my tongue throughout this process.  It sort of interfered with my ability to give you specific measurements. Accounting for this variable, which you too will likely encounter, I'd say start with 5 ounces of 72% dark chocolate and 1/2 cup water.  Sample and adjust accordingly.  That is, assuming you have any left to adjust. 

Food for Thought: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." -Leonardo da Vinci