As we cook our way through Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking Chez Moi, this weeks recipe is Marquise au Chocolat. (Or as we are calling it in my house, frozen chocolate mousse.) This recipe only uses 6 ingredients so I decided to splurge on some good chocolate since it was the main ingredient. I went to Whole Foods and bought a fancy bittersweet chocolate that I had never tried before. Of course, I chose the chocolate based on the packaging I liked best. I always assume if a brand/product takes the time to design nice packaging they probably take the same time and care to develop a quality product.
I also played it safe and bought pasteurized eggs. I wasn't going to let some raw eggs scare me away from the recipe, but decided I should be safe. The eggs were a little difficult to separate. I think it was because they had been pasteurized. I may just try organic ones next time and figure if they are fresh that they will be safe as well.
This recipe was so simple. First we melted the butter and chocolate over a double-boiler. Which in my house is a pan of water with a mixing bowl precariously balanced on top. Once the chocolate and eggs were melted together we let the mixture cool on the counter for 15 minutes. Then we mixed the egg yolks and sugar. We beat that mixture together until it thickened and turned a very pretty yellow. Then folded the egg mixture into the chocolate. Next came the whipping cream with sugar. (It was very hard to keep from eating this before we folded it into the chocolate.)
Folding the whipping cream into the chocolate took a little longer than I thought in order to incorporate everything fully. But, we wanted to make sure the mixture didn't have any streaks going through it that we would see when we sliced it. We were very careful though as we folded to fold gently so that the mixture stayed fluffy and full of air. We wrapped it well with plastic wrap and placed it in the freezer. The spatulas and bowl tasted delicious when cleaning (licking), can't wait to try a slice. I've decided that this will be our Valentine's Day treat so we will have to wait a week to enjoy. So the photos I took are before it was frozen and sliced.
The full recipe can be found on page 357 of Dorie's book, Baking Chez Moi. The Tuesday's with Dorie group has agreed not to publish the recipes so please purchase her book for this recipe and many more.
I think I see a squirrel!