Egg white-based mousse

Egg white-based mousse

Level:
The main characteristic of this type of mousse is that it does not contain cream as an aerating agent, rather whisked egg whites. Its texture is very airy and its flavour is the strongest of chocolate. To stabilise it, a percentage of gelatine needs to be combined with the couverture.

Basic recipe

Used products: Basic recipe

Preparation: Basic recipe

1. Boil the milk and whipping cream together. Infuse with the vanilla pod.
2. Emulsify the liquid homogenously with the couverture.
3. Separately, whisk the egg whites with the invert sugar to medium peaks. Do not beat until stiff as it will make it difficult to incorporate the other ingredients.
4. Mix a part of the egg whites with the emulsion, blend and finally fold in the remaining whites.

For this mousse type, you can optionally add approx. 0.1/0.2% of gelatine sheets (2 to 4 g of gelatine sheets for this recipe) to stabilise the mousse and prevent syneresis or water loss during refrigeration.

The final temperature of this mousse isn't as important as those that include whipped cream. It can be worked at a higher temperature, although after tests we found that it is best to keep the temperature within 24 to 28°C to ensure the couverture starts to crystallise to obtain a better final texture. (Remember always: white and milk couvertures, lower temperature; dark couvertures, higher temperature).

Usage

This mousse can be used in all types of dessert, entremets or served in glasses, however ideally it should be used in those where the mousse doesn't need to be handled much. The final texture is not liquid, due to the whisked egg whites, so a piping bag with a wide tip can be used for assembly. It has good stability when refrigerated.