This recipe is a small homage to St Patrick’s Day. The decadent chocolate mousse is laced with Irish whiskey and the coffee cream on top makes it taste like an Irish coffee. The mousse is in a pint sized shot glass, so it looks like a baby Guinness and is accompanied by some fiery ginger biscuits. Have a great Paddy’s day.
Here’s how:
Chocolate mousse
Make’s 6 small portions of mousse / 1 large dish
– 225g of dark chocolate
– 30g of skinned crushed hazelnuts/ skinned crushed almonds
(whatever your preference, you can also leave them out)
– 25g of butter
– 100g of sugar
– 3 egg yolks
– 40ml of whiskey
– 3 egg whites
Coffee cream
– half pint of cream whipped
– 2 tablespoons of espresso coffee
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius. Place the crushed nuts on a baking tray and toast until lightly golden. Place a heatproof bowl over a pot of boiling water on the heat. Melt the chocolate, half the sugar and butter in the heatproof bowl. Leave to melt slowly, avoid stirring until it has all melted. Once melted, take the bowl off the heat. Cool for 5 minutes, then add the egg yolks, whiskey and crushed toasted nuts.
Meanwhile whip the egg whites until it forms stiff peaks. Add the remaining sugar and whip until the sugar has been well mixed in. Stir the first couple of spoons of egg white well into the chocolate mixture. Fold the rest of the egg white carefully into the chocolate mixture. Finally pour the mixture into dishes of your choice and place in the fridge to set.
Ginger Biscuits
Makes about 18 small biscuits. I used a recipe from Allegra McEvedy that I found on the BBC website.
– 100g of unsalted butter, softened
– 80g of plain flour
– 30g of icing sugar
– 30g of cornflour
– a few drops of vanilla essence
– 50g of fresh root ginger, washed, peeled and finely grated
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Beat the butter in a bowl with a wooden spoon, until it is really soft and creamy. Sift in the flour, icing sugar and cornflour and beat until all well mixed in. Finally stir in the grated ginger and vanilla essence. (It may look like a lot of ginger when you are grating it, but believe me it cooks down and mellows a lot.
Form the mixture into small gobstopper sized balls. Place on a sheet of greaseproof paper on a baking sheet. Make sure to leave a nice distance between each biscuit. Flatten the biscuit balls with the back of a spoon to make flat biscuit shapes. Place in the preheated oven for 12- 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Place immediately on a wire rack and leave to cool.
What worked:
It tastes pretty darn good.
What didn’t work:
The jury is still out on the nuts in the mousse. Some people like silky smooth mousse, but the nuts do give great flavour and I personally love the nutty texture.
