Frozen Strawberry Mousse

This tastes just like regular strawberry mousse, but it is not made with the usual egg whites or whipped cream (or Rich’s Whip). If you haven’t already heard about aquafaba, you won’t believe what aerates the mousse. Here are the three ingredients in this mousse: strawberries, sugar and–this is the part that makes the mousse fluffy–the water from a can of chickpeas.

Yes, really.

If you take the liquid that beans were cooked in and whip it, it turns into meringue. If you want the story behind all this, take a look at this interview with Goose Wholt. There is a Facebook page dedicated to this topic: Vegan Meringue–Hits and Misses.

If you want to see a video of how to make this, look at this youtube video by Tivonika:

I ended up using different proportions of strawberry, sugar and chickpea liquid, but the basic methodology is the same.

Bonus: If you want to know how to make the crunchy bits sprinkled on top of the strawberry mousse, take a look at this Passover recipe by Estee Kafra.

Easy Blender Chocolate Mousse (Vegan)

I had made chocolate mousse with tofu before. And it was very nice But when I saw a tofu based mousse recipe from Francois Payard, I had the feeling it would be a bit better than what I had tried before. It was excellent: although denser than some mousses, it was surprisingly light given that there was no whipped cream or egg whites folded into it.

I changed the recipe out of sheer laziness. The original recipe calls for heating soy milk in a pot, pouring it over chopped chocolate in a bowl, whisking to make a ganache and then folding in silken tofu that was pureed in a food processor. I found a way to make this a one appliance, one step recipe. I dump freshly brewed coffee, chocolate chunks and silken tofu in the blender and whirl away. The resulting mousse looks hopelessly liquid, but it sets up in the fridge. Somehow or other, the blender whips some bubbles into the mixture, giving it that fluffiness characteristic of mousses.

The original recipe calls for a pound of 61% chocolate, a pint of vanilla soy milk, 12.3 ounces of silken tofu and a fresh vanilla bean. There was no indication of serving yield.

I tried two different formulas:

(1) 6 ounces hot coffee, 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, 2 ounces chocolate chips, 4 ounces silken tofu, 2 tsp. vanilla; and

(2) 5 ounces hot coffee, 1 ounces coconut oil, 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, 1 Tbl. cocoa powder, 4 ounces silken tofu, a pinch of salt, and 2 tsp. vanilla.

Each version was good and yielded 4 servings (or 5 smallish servings).

Michel Rostang’s Double Chocolate Mousse Cake (Dorie Greenspan)

I made lots of Dorie desserts for Hanukah: speculoos, apple cake (this time with flour instead of potato starch), this mousse cake, and croquants.