Flowers And Chocolates...

Some say Valentine's Day is highly over-rated and commercialized; but what's so wrong in taking some time out of our busy lives to do something special for our loved ones? My husband and I celebrated our first Valentine's Day together this year and I wanted to surprise him by making something he would love. If there is one thing he loves next to ice-cream, it's dark chocolate. My sister had made a delicious semi-sweet chocolate mousse (no sugar added!) once and I wanted to give it a shot. She couldn't find the original recipe so I used my own judgement and made this mousse based on the method she told me. However clichéd, there is nothing better than flowers and chocolates to say 'I love you' and this chocolate mousse is just perfect to go with those flowers :).

Chocolate Mousse


Ingredients:

2 Oz. semi-sweet baking chocolate - I used Baker's Semi-sweet Chocolate Squares(2 squares)

1 Egg white

¾  Cup heavy cream

½ Teaspoon vanilla essence

1 Teaspoon orange liqueur

• Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks start forming. Keep the whipped cream in the fridge until you work on the other ingredients.
• Melt the chocolate in the microwave. This is extremely simple – no melting over boiling water! Keep the chocolate in the microwave on HIGH for about 30 seconds. Remove and stir. Pop it in the oven for another 20 seconds, take out and stir again. Do this until the chocolate melts completely. It takes about 1.5 minutes or so. Keep aside.
• Separate the white of one egg. Beat the egg until it is foamy and starts forming a shape.
• The chocolate should be slightly cooled off by the time you get your egg ready. It should be just warm enough to stay gooey. Fold in a third of the egg white and the vanilla essence and orange lequeur in the melted chocolate. It is safer to add the liqueur with the egg whites so that it doesn't harden the chocolate.
• Fold in the remaining egg white by thirds. Fold in the whipped heavy cream spoon by spoon. Make sure you handle it very gently because keeping the mousse soft and fluffy is the idea. Pop the mousse in the fridge for 15-20 minutes and it’s ready to serve.
• Serve the mousse with some shaved chocolate, whipped cream, raspberries, strawberries or whatever rocks your boat. I just used some shaved chocolate and bright colored flower petals for decoration =).

This was very easy to make compared to some other recipes I saw online. You can add any kind of flavoring such as espresso, amaretto liqueur etc. The above recipe makes decent sized portions for two.