Get a perfect creamy chocolate mousse using just water and chocolate. It sounds crazy. I've always been told that you never mix chocolate and water, because the chocolate gets grainy and ruined. But this recipe from the french chemist Hervé This make you rethink your chocolate truths. You can watch Heston Blumenthal explain and prepare the mousse here.

My husband is a chocolateholic, so chocolate mousse is one of his favorite desserts, but I rarely make it. Maybe, maybe I’ll make more often, when it's as easy as this. I definitely have to try making it again, with different chocolates and different flavor profiles. The mousse has a very intense chocolate taste, you might tone it down with some sugar or adding cream with the water.

I didn’t have a 70% chocolate, so I used the 61% Valrhona, I just got, instead, and it worked perfectly.

Serves 2-3

Ingredients

265 g (9⅓ oz) chocolate (70 %)
240 g (1 cup) water

Directions:

Place a mixing bowl on top of another slightly larger bowl filled with ice and cold water, (you can add a teaspoon of salt to get a cooler ice water). The bottom of the top bowl should touch the ice water, but the ice water shouldn't be able to get into the top bowl. Set aside.

Chop the chocolate finely, adding it to a small sauce pan with the water. Slowly melt the chocolate while whisking. When melted, pour the chocolate into the bowl sitting in the ice water, begin whisking. Whisk vigorously until mousse begins to thicken. In the beginning it looks like nothing will ever happen, but after 2-4 minutes it starts to thicken up. Be careful not to over whisk as the chocolate can become grainy. I used a hand mixer in the beginning and a hand whisk in the end. If you over whisk the mousse, you just have to remelt the chocolate mousse and start whisking all over again. You don't have to throw it all away.

When you have the desired texture, pour the mousse in to the serving dishes. You have to do it pretty fast, because the mousse thickens.

Serve the mousse immediately or let the mousse thicken up some more in the refrigerator.

The chocolate mousse will keep, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. (But not in my house).