Mousse
The word mousse has a French origin, which means foam, but mousse is more complicated to prepare than foam. It is a complete dessert, which can be consumed as it is. (We can prepare mousse also from vegetables, served as a side order to meat or as a main vegetarian course)
Let`s see our festive recipe. First, we prepare an English cream: mash the milk, the cream and the sugar and boil it to 60˚C, then add yolk. The yolk gets thick and we get a cream with a pudding consistency. We add the Bailey’s liqueur and the coffee and leave the cream to chill to 30˚C. We soak a gelatine leaf to water and wait until it softens then we take it out, squeeze the water out of it and we add it to the cream. We whip cream in a bowl and carefully mash it with our mixture. We pour the cream into forms and put it to the fridge to chill. The trick of the mousse is to observe the temperature. We cannot overheat the eggs, because they will be rugged. The gelatine under 30˚C quickly hardens. The mousse is ready – worthy to note that others ease off the cream with whipped egg-white, because egg-white does not affect the flavours. There is a mousse, which is prepared not with English cream, but with a mixture of melted butter and chocolate. This type is eased off with milk, gelatine or they ease off fruit pyré with cream or gelatine. If we add egg to the mousse it will be heavy, but a fruit based mousse is light.
Ingredients for English cream: 250 ml milk, 250 ml cream, 200 g sugar, 6 egg yolks, 0,5 dl coffee (can be instant), 0,5 dl Bailey’s liqueur. Later: 4 dl cream to whip, 6 gelatine leaves or 2 tblsp gelatine powder.
Éva Nagyvendégi