I Recreated The Best Chocolate Mousse I Had in Paris

Hello, we're making one of my favorite desserts today. The silkiest, creamiest, most luxurious French chocolate mousse. I gotta be honest, I don't think I fully understood how much I loved chocolate mousse until this very recent trip to Paris. Chocolate mousse to me feels like the most quintessential dessert that every French restaurant has. I was also able to go to Chez Janu who is wildly famous for their chocolate mousse. It was very delicious, very good. But I will also say all the versions I've tried, they were all incredibly delicious. There's just something about the French version that is this sort of perfect in between of custardy, but still airy, creamy, but not too much, just the right amount of sweetness, intensely chocolatey. Naturally, I came back and was like, how do I recreate this so that we can all be able to enjoy it in the comforts of our own homes? Turns out it's actually not that difficult to make. It only requires a few ingredients. So if you love chocolate, I'm telling you, you gotta give this a try. Now, let me show you what we got. So here's basically everything you need. There's some eggs over here, some sugar, some butter. This one is straight from Paris, so it's gonna be delicious. And then of course, chocolate. As you can tell, very, very few ingredients, very simple. And that's why the quality of the ingredients matters a lot, and especially the chocolate. I spent the entire weekend hunting down this bag of Valrhona chocolate. I recently had some really great chocolate desserts made with Valrhona chocolate. French pastry chefs love this brand, so can't go wrong. The 70% here is also very important. It is that perfect middle ground of having enough cocoa solids and just enough sweetness so that it'll maintain some sort of structure without getting too bitter or tasting too flat. So 70%, very important. There it is, beautiful chocolate. Ooh, even just smelling this is making my mouth water. So very first thing I'm doing is creating the chocolate base. So this is pretty much just the chocolate and the butter. Chocolate goes in, a pinch of salt. You can add liquor here if you would like. I'm keeping it simple today. I just want it to taste ultra chocolatey. And now let me just set up my bain-marie, let this melt. Just making sure that doesn't touch the water. Water's not boiling. Just going to let it slowly melt. Again, with the 70%, it's going to melt beautifully, not grainy at all. So then while this is going on, I am going to separate the eggs over here. There's no cream in this recipe. I think traditionally butter and chocolate and egg, that's really it, which is probably sort of why it has this like rich velvety feel without becoming too heavy. Kind of like how the Italians do tiramisu. All that airy fluffiness, creaminess is going to come directly from this egg. The hardest part was trying to figure out the ratios of everything, even with whites to yolks. I'm using five egg whites and six egg yolks because I feel like even though the mousse is airy, it has this sort of like very custardy, creamy quality that I also don't want to lose. So an extra yolk in here. And this is now what I'm going to whip up so I can then combine it with the chocolate, which is looking very nice over here. Look at that. Perfectly shiny, super smooth. Oh, I just love melted chocolate. And I'll set this aside and we'll come back to it. Getting down to business here. Hair's up because this one has no cream. This is the part that is going to make it custardy, give it that sort of like eggy, rich flavor instead of just like flavored whipped cream. Sugar going in. There you go. Trying to get it to more pale-ish color. Maybe I should have used a bigger bowl, but waiting for the volume to double. There you go. Now it's getting that ribbony texture. That's what we're talking about. Now I'm going to combine these two, except a little hot right now. So I'm going to give it a second. I don't want to scramble my eggs. Just let it chill for a little bit. And while I'm waiting for this to cool a little bit, I just want to talk about this beautiful pot that I used to do the bain-marie. This pot is from Zwilling. You can see their iconic little logo there. This is super exciting for me because I've been a huge fan of Zwilling for a long time. I grew up using their pans, so I love that. I get to officially work with them and have them sponsor this portion of the video today. I actually just got this entire beautiful set from them. This is the Zwilling Milano. It came just in time for me after I came back from Paris. It was perfect timing. So this is their newer titanium-reinforced ceramic nonstick line. It's PFAS-free, it's non-toxic, it's made in Italy, and they are as gorgeous as they work well. I am in love with these pans. It's great for everything from stovetop to induction, even to baking in the oven up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Zwilling's been making stuff like this since like 1731, so you know you can trust. Even though I didn't heat chocolate in here directly today, chocolate's always like kind of finicky. You need like gentle, even heat, no hot spots. And the beautiful thing about this guy is that it has this cold-forged aluminum body, so it heats evenly and the handle stays cool, which is a game changer for when you're multitasking like me. But really, I am just so excited to use this set. I cannot stop staring at them. Links below if you wanna check it out. QR codes right here. They are so gorgeous. Okay, now back to the mousse. All right, this is no longer too hot to touch. Time to fold this chocolate right in at a time. Ooh-wee. Even though we are going to fold in the egg whites later, I'm just trying to be gentle here, so I'm still protecting the air that's already in here. It kind of smells like sponge cake right now, like an airy chocolate sponge cake. You can see the colors is progressively getting darker. Ooh, all right. This is starting to look like brownie batter. It really does smell intensely chocolatey right now. Beautiful. Okay, I feel like this is just about good. You can see, oh, it's so glossy. Oh, so good. So now I'm gonna set this aside, and we're gonna whip up our egg whites. Sugar's going in. Let's whip this up. So this is a good place to stop because you don't want stiff peaks. You actually want these softer peaks. Everything about this dessert is about texture. The soft peaks is how we're going to be able to achieve that sort of custardy, but still airy texture. Ooh, look at this chocolate. It almost looks like a ganache. So now what I'm going to do is actually scoop a little bit of this egg white into the chocolate mixture, and just whisk that together, just to help loosen this up a little bit. That's good, all right. It's quite lustrous, isn't it? So now I can fold the rest of it in, slowly but surely. This is what's gonna give it the airiness. Basically, you're trying to go for fluffy cloud texture, except maybe the kind that's ready for a thunderstorm because it is going to be a little more dense, a little more intense. Just want to fold this until I don't see the streaks, and then we gotta stop. This looks pretty good to me. Looks like chocolate pudding right about now. Ooh, I gotta resist eating it right now because what I need to do is to set for three to four hours minimum, and that is the most torturous part, as always, but promise it will be worth the wait. I'm taking inspiration from Chez Genou, where they come out with this giant pot, so then they can just scoop up a big chunk and dump it on your plate. So this is what I'm gonna put in the chocolate mousse in. Just all of that right in here. Oh my. Now that is a chocolate fountain. I did not expect to actually be able to fill this all up, but here we are. Here she is in all her glory. I know it doesn't look like much right now. The egg, the butter needs time to firm up properly, so I'm gonna pop this in the fridge. If I'm lucky, I'll get to eat it today. If not, I'll eat it tomorrow. By the way, we'll have mousse ready in a few. All right, friends, it is now four hours later and I have the chocolate mousse here. Also, yes, I couldn't wait until tomorrow. It had to be today. Four hours should be plenty, though, and you can see, dare I do it, it is now, okay, woo, perfectly set. Look at that. You can sort of see all the air bubbles on the side. I'm excited. This is it. This is the moment of truth, and in true Parisian fashion, or as they did it, we're doing giant spoon on a plate. It's just gonna be ploop. Here we go. Let's see what this looks like. Do I just, ooh, do you see that? Oh, it's like chocolate pudding. Try and plop on there. Oh my gosh. This is what it looks like. Ultimately what it is, it is this sort of like brown goop, ugly delicious, as we say. Here's the thing, trust. It's just chocolate, you guys. It's just chocolate custard, just as it is also great, but another way I like to do it is with olive oil and a little bit of sea salt, so that's what I'm gonna add on here. Good olive oil and tiny sprinkle of salt on top, and there it is. Ta-da. Here's the mousse still. You can see that texture over here. Very warm in here, so I'm gonna take a bite finally before it gets too goopy. You know Charlie in Chocolate Factory, Augustus Goop, when he fell into that chocolate river and just like was surrounded by the smell of chocolate? This is what this feels like and smells like right now. Now this feeling is what I'm talking about. Like that first bite feels so fluffy, but then that chocolate just sort of slowly melts and dissipates on your tongue. It lingers there. It just feels so luxurious, so intensely chocolatey, not too heavy, but you also get that satisfaction of eating something so creamy and delicious. I love this. This is so good. Beauty of this dessert too is that you can make it in advance. It is much better if you do make it in advance. Just such a simple little treat, but it tastes so good. Oh my God, I feel like I'm at a, I feel like I'm back in Paris again. I love it. Before I finish this entire plate, thank you for watching as always. I hope you enjoyed. I hope you give this recipe a try. I'm gonna link in the description below. I'm probably gonna post on Patreon. If you like this video, remember to like and subscribe. Really though, this dessert is the one that I've been thinking about the most since I've been back, so worth the effort. I'll see you in the next one. Bye.