My husband and I were having a massive chocolate craving, so I rummaged around in my fridge and freezer to see what I had. I peeked my head out of the kitchen and shouted “mystery box challenge!” Yeah, that was a MasterChef Australia reference. I’m a big dork, but at least I acknowledge it and don’t even try to hide it! I really surprised myself when this was finished mostly because it really tasted amazing. It took longer for me to figure out what to do and almost giving up before I knew exactly what I was making.
So after poking around and pouting for about 10 minutes, I ended up pulling out a package of frozen pastry shells, some bitter-sweet ganache left over from earlier in the week, and some heavy cream. I knew exactly what I wanted and the total time took 30 minutes from “What the hell should I make?” to “OMG this tastes awesome!” If you precooked the shells, then you could whip this up for company in 10 minutes, and delight the hell out of them. I added the option to add gelatin or not. If for immediate consumption omit the gelatin, and if not then add in the gelatin and refrigerate. Both methods work well and both produce a fluffy, rich and quick chocolate mousse.
Quick Chocolate Mousse
Posted by Lia S on August 20th, 2011
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 4 packaged puff pastry shells, prepared according to directions
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 cup frosting sugar
- 2/3 cup chocolate ganache, room temperature (see my salted choc tarte recipe)
- 1 tsp gelatin (optional)
- 1 tsp cold water (optional)
- 2 tsp boiling hot water (optional)
Instructions
- Make the puffy pastry shells according to directions on package. After baking, remove the tops and set aside for garnish.
- In a medium size bowl add the heavy cream and whip until it is just starting to get thick.
- Add in the frosting sugar. See my note at the end if this are not going to be eaten immediately. Continue whisking until it is just barely starting to hold its shape when you lift the whisk out of the bowl.
- Add in 1/2 cup of the ganache and whip until stiff peaks form, and the mixture is a consistent color. Set in the fridge to chill while you prep the shells.
- Put the remaining ganache into a small piping bag. In the bottom of each pastry shell, pipe a thin layer of ganache. On each of the caps pipe a dolop of the ganache. Any remaining ganache add to the bottoms of the cups or use to decorate the plates.
- Take the mousse out of the fridge and you can either spoon into the cups or place in a pastry bag and pipe it into the shells, filling to the top and slightly over to give a very full look. Place the cap on the top of the mousse and decorate as desired. I dusted with powdered sugar, and drizzled chocolate sauce.
Note: If you are not going to use the mousse immediately I strongly suggest using gelatin in the recipe as follows. Dissolve 1 tsp of gelatin in 1 tsp of cold water and let set for 5 minutes. Add 2 tsp of boiling hot water to completely dissolve, and add to the cream mixture by slowly pouring in after all the frosting sugar has been mixed in but before adding the ganache. Complete recipe as above.
Inspired by Alton Brown
Oh how cute. It looks wonderful. It seems you did pretty well with your challenge. Nice one!
What a random idea to have sweet voule vents [not sure of the sp]. Amazing!
That picture is just amazing and so is the dessert!
Wonderful, fast mousse, I just love how you have ganache “hanging around” in the house :D That sort of stuff wouldn’t last 2 days at mine!
Oh I love mousse. I bet those are really nice.
These Chocolate Ganache Mousse Cups look amazing. I’m such a chocolate fanatic.. so I am so glad I found this recipe and this blog. Nice post