Summer Blog Project: G is for Gluten’s Chocolate Mousse…sort of

Posted on | August 21, 2010 | 5 Comments

I’m sure you’ve noticed that the look of Gluten Freebies has changed a bit since my last post. I’ve switched on over to WordPress (which is a surprisingly easy process) and bought my own domain name. I’m still playing around with the look of the blog, but I think I’m heading in the right direction. The address is now: http://www.glutenfreebiesbymiel.com. I thought I’d just make a general announcement since I’m sure you were terribly alarmed at the sudden change (haha). Now onward!

I’m sorry to say that I’ve made my first flop today. I’m not even sure if I should call it that. What came of experimenting didn’t come out badly. It simply wasn’t the chocolate mousse that I had seen on Theresa’s blog, G is for Gluten. Theresa is one of my favorite bloggers because she’s always trying new things to be healthier and happier. One week, she tried different ways of getting more iron in her diet, an important issue for those with Celiac Disease and for women in general. I have to admit, I have a bit of a soft spot for Theresa because we’re a bit alike. We love literature and Frank Sinatra. And I can’t help but love anyone who describes themselves as “a bespectacled cardigan wearing librarian in training.” It’s simply too endearing. But honestly, my favorite thing about Theresa and her blog is that sometimes she’ll just write about her day. There might be something about the food that she’s eating in the post, but along with it, you get a sense of what’s going on in her life. And even though I’m a food blogger looking for food blogs, I find myself interested in reading these posts about her day or week because it reminds me that when we write about food, we’re also writing about life. This isn’t to say that Theresa doesn’t have some fantastic recipes on her blog as well. There are so many that I want to try.

When I decided on the Chocolate Mousse, Theresa was so for it that she redid her recipe. Now, she uses raw egg in her recipe, which I would have been willing to try if there hadn’t been so many salmonella scares in the US in the past week or so. Unfortunately, the lack of the eggs in our mousse is probably why it didn’t quite work. However, I think I’d take a flopped, but still delicious chocolate mousse over salmonella any day. Well, here’s what happened anyway. For Theresa’s recipe, you need:

250gms dark chocolate [62% cocoa solids is best, no darker.] (I actually used semi-sweet chocolate chips for this)
75gms of butter
8 T sugar
2 eggs, separated
250 mls of cream
6 T of milk
1/2 t vanilla

As I said, we took the eggs out. To even out the consistency, we also took the milk out. That might have caused our problem as well. So I first melted my butter and chocolate chips. Meanwhile, my mother started whipping the cream. We didn’t have a mixer so we took turns whipping it by hand. Boy, that’s tiring. It’s a pretty good work out, making whipped cream by hand. Just make sure to switch arms or you’ll have one really large muscle and one puny one.

We ended up using four tablespoons of sugar instead of eight because we figured without the eggs and milk and with the extra sweetness of the chocolate chips, it might be a little too sweet if we put in the full eight. That, at least, was a good decision. So we whipped our cream and simply poured the chocolate and butter concoction into the cream as we continued to beat it.

Now, my mom thinks that we went wrong by putting too much of the chocolate into the cream. It hit a point where the whole thing started to separate. Then the butter in the chocolate mixture began to harden. We tried putting a bit more cream in but it was too late. My very first flop. Oh, I was absolutely miserable at the idea that I had failed at one of the recipes I’d wanted to try so badly. I sat down on my couch with the extra chocolate and ate that straight (doesn’t help that I’m a bit hormonal at the moment, does it?).

Trying to salvage the dish, we loaded the chocolate slop into a bowl and into the freezer so it could harden up a bit. We knew that no matter what we did, it wouldn’t have the consistency of mousse, but we could still make it into something eatable. After about an hour in the freezer, I found that it was still soft enough to serve, but it wasn’t slop anymore. So we served it in a little cup like this and found that though it wasn’t mousse, it certainly made a cute dessert:

I think it looks pretty cute. So I dipped my spoon in and gave it a taste. It could have been a bit smoother, creamier, and I’m sure it would have been had I been able to use the original recipe. It wasn’t exactly bad. The feeling of it was a bit odd, a bit clumpy in places. If I had any talent for chemistry, I’d look into why what happened happened. You can ask any of my friends to know that I don’t. So the only thing I can do is try again! Perhaps we put too much chocolate in or maybe it was because we couldn’t use the eggs. Maybe a mixer would have helped us. I don’t know. But I hope I figure it out next time.

I guess everyone has their cooking flops. Nobody starts out as a perfect chef right? But I’m learning and figuring out my own way of doing things, which I think is important. Sure, my mom has her tips and tricks, most of which work perfectly for me as I am my mother’s daughter. But along the way, I’m finding that a lot of instinct is what it takes. My instinct is telling me now that if I’m going to try this recipe again, (which I plan to) I’m going to need either a mixer or a personal trainer.

Before I go, I just want to thank Theresa of G is for Gluten for allowing me to try out her recipe. I wish it came out as well as yours looked, but it was still fun giving it a try. And I’ll let you know when I try again.

Miel

Category: celiac disease, chocolate mousse, dessert, egg, G is for Gluten, gf, gluten, gluten free, snacks, summer, summer blog project

Comments

5 Responses to “Summer Blog Project: G is for Gluten’s Chocolate Mousse…sort of”

Keri
August 23rd, 2010 @ 9:44 am

Woooo for new looks! Seeing as how you ARE our resident sexy professional so I’m not at all surprised about awesome your blog looks now.

Ahh, flops in the kitchen are floppy. I love how you stay in such good spirits about the whole thing; way to take it with a grain of salt (COOKING JOKE!) I agree with you that taking out the eggs is a good move; salmonella should never invited to the kitchen parties! The picture you took of it is absolutely lovely though and the line about the mixer/personal trainer made me LOL everywhere.

Good thing you have that fancy schmancy kitchen this year… you’ll be kicking that mousse’s ass and THEN some

[Reply]
GFree_Miel Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 9:48 am
Hahaha! I love cooking jokes. We are going to make so many cooking jokes in the fancy schmancy kitchen. I can’t wait!

[Reply]
Theresa
August 24th, 2010 @ 4:08 am

OH! I’m so sad that it didn’t work out for you! We don’t really get salmonella much in NZ, but I TOTALLY understand why you’d leave out the eggs! I remember when I was little and felt sick after eating too much cookie dough, my sister told me about samonella and I felt terrible all day because I was so scared of it.
I tried another mousse recipe recently that used melted marshmallows instead of eggs – but it seperated on me too, twice. I don’t know what it is, but sometimes stuff in the kitchen just doesn’t want to work ay.
Aw, thanks for all your lovely comments, you’re so sweet!

[Reply]
GFree_Miel Reply:
August 24th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Ooh marshmallows! I never even thought of that! Experimenting is kind of fun even when things don’t turn out quite right.

[Reply]
Theresa Reply:
August 25th, 2010 at 1:01 am
Yeah, I agree! I love experimenting, but often forget what I actually did for the recipe so I can’t really blog about it
Here is a link to the marshmallow recipe if you’re still craving chocolate mousse!
http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=75

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