Baby Guinness Mousse

The inspiration behind this chocolate mousse is the baby guinness cocktail shot. That is a shot of Kahlua or Tia Maria topped with a head of Baileys. The shot for people who prefer candy to alcohol.

Baby Guinness Mousse is one of my favourite recipes from the old version of twimii. Really it’s just a gorgeous thing. Which made it so infuriating when I discovered I hadn’t recorded the right quantities for the recipe. It was the reason I moved all the old recipes to a page entitled The Old (and often inaccurate) Recipes of Twimii’s Past.

But it turns out the recipe wasn’t as wrong as I thought it was. It should read 200ml of single cream for the chocolate mousse.

Since the last time I made it I’ve apparently got much better at fixing recipes. I think this might be because of cooking things from recipe books. I think that helped me learn a thing or two. Maybe.

So that’s the only change in the recipe?

No. One problem that the original gorgeous thing had was that I used single cream for the Bailey’s topping. I generally prefer single cream to the heavier double cream. And this isn’t really for health reasons. Although I have pretended that is the case in the past… I just prefer the lighter texture.

Double cream is heavier than single cream because it’s got more fat. The more fat content in cream the more stable it is. So there is a problem with using single cream for the topping in this mousse because the Baileys can cause the cream to split. And it ends up looking like someone spat in the mousse. I know! Of all the looks you don’t want a mousse to have the “Did someone spit in this?” pretty much tops the list.

Using double cream avoids this problem. But I would still advise just whipping up the cream and some Baileys right before serving. You could probably use single cream in this case but I’m going to put down double cream in the ingredients because – it’s not good when the cream and alcohol split.

Anything else?

In the old recipe I had linked to a webpage with tips for making chocolate mousse. Unfortunately that page no longer exists. It was so useful. After reading it I realised the reason I was having such trouble making chocolate mousses in the first place was – well actually there were a few reasons – but the main one was that I was over-heating the chocolate when I’d melt it and it caused it to “seize” meaning that it became grainy and basically inedible. There is no fix for chocolate that has seized – you just throw it out. I now find the best way to melt chocolate is in the microwave (the one here is 800W). Buzz it for 30 seconds. Take it out. Stir it. Buzz it for another 15 seconds. Take it out. Stir it. Repeat till you have smoothly melted chocolate.

Alright, seized chocolate bad. Anything else?

Another mistake I was making was that I wasn’t beating the egg yolks enough. You should beat the egg yolks and sugar until they have a creamy-buttery consistency – if they’re still looking sunshine-yellow you haven’t beaten them enough.

There were other mistakes I was making, I’m sure, but I can’t remember what exactly they were at this stage. Anyway it all worked out well in the end. Until I tried making it a year later and discovered that the recipe was wrong. Very disappointing altogether.

So I’m happy to finally correct it. I’ve reduced the chocolate from 175g to 150g because I like chocolate very dark and this might be too dark for some. That said the chocolate in this mousse should be dark because the cream topping is there to nicely lighten the intensity of the mousse – just like how the head of Bailey’s makes the shot of Tia Maria or Kahlua smoother. If you don’t want a cream topping at all you could make this chocolate mousse with 100g 70% chocolate and you’ll have a very yummy, and just slightly boozy, chocolate mousse. I’d suggest adding in brandy or rum if you want to umfph it up a bit.

The quantities I give for the alcohol here are generously added – as in poured over a tablespoon rather than carefully measured out – so you could add an extra spoon or two – taste it and see for yourself.

Oh I also warmed the cream a little before adding it to the chocolate – just give 30 seconds in the microwave – stop and stir it after the first 15 seconds. This is because it was fridge-cold and after making the chocolate orange pots I know adding cold cream to your melted chocolate will cause it to harden a little – obvious enough really.