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| Double Chocolate & Hazelnut Mousse |
This month's "We Should Cocoa" blog challenge hosted by the Chocolate Log Blog is to use chocolate and hazel or cob nuts. I decided to do a Double Chocolate and Hazelnut Mousse decorated with lightly salted caramel shards of roasted whole hazelnuts. The bottom layer is a rich dark chocolate mousse enhanced with Frangelico, an Italian hazelnut liqueur. This is then topped with a milk chocolate layer into which I folded in some crushed hazelnut praline.
Originally I thought of having the top layer made with a caramel mousse made with Caramac bars (remember them?) But these can be a bit difficult to find these days - no idea why because everyone who I ever speak to about these all claim to love them but simply can't find them any more! Then I considered doing a coffee mousse top layer as both chocolate and coffee sit well with hazelnuts and are a classic combination bewtween themselves. However as my husband is not overly fond of coffee flavoured desserts and someone has to help me eat my creation, I opted for the double chocolate option!
Rough recipe follows but as is my style I kept forgetting to measure things out so that I could correctly relay the info! The quantity made 4 large dessert glass fulls but for a dinner party this would easily serve 6 - 8 in more delicate portions!
6ozs Dark chocolate (go for a 50-70% cocoa solids) - melted
4 medium free-range eggs, separated
generous tablespoon / slug of Frangelico hazelnut liqueur (available at many good supermarkets or off-licenses and worth buying as goes nicely in coffee too ;-)
For the milk chocolate hazelnut mousse layer:
4ozs hazelnut milk chocolate (I used Lindt but you could just use normal milk chocolate as you are going to add caramelised chopped hazelnuts in any case)
2 free range eggs, separated
2ozs caster sugar
1 oz chopped and roasted hazelnuts
For the Salted Caramelised Hazelnut Shards:
4 ozs caster sugar
1/4 pint water
2ozs whole roasted hazelnuts (skinned if you prefer)
pinch of sea salt flakes - I used Maldon
First make the praline as it needs to cool and set before you can grind it into a powder for folding into the milk chocolate mousse layer.
To make the dark chocolate mousse:
Put the 2ozs caster sugar into a pan and gently melt, add the chopped roasted hazelnuts and coat well. When the sugar has melted and caramelised, spoon the nut mixture onto some non-stick baking paper and leave to set.
Melt the dark chocolate however you like and works best for you (I do mine in the microwave), leave to cool a little (so the raw egg doesn't start to cook/scramble in the residual heat) then beat in one egg yolk at a time mixing well between additional yolks.
Then stir in the Frangelico liqueur.
Beat egg whites till bordering on stiff peaks (don't overdo it, better to be on the soft peak side) then stir in a large tablespoonful of the whisked whites into the dark chocolate mix to lighten it before gently folding in the remainder.
Pour into your dessert dishes (individual or one big one) and leave in fridge to set.
Make the milk chocolate and hazelnut mousse layer next:
Melt the milk chocolate next, cool a little (so the raw egg doesn't start to cook/scramble in the residual heat) then add one egg yolk at a time mixing well.
Using either a rolling pin or other heavy object and lots of aggression or a grinder / mini food processor (which is what I used) grind the cold hazelnut praline you made first into a powder. It doesn't need to be completely finely ground, a few small bits here and there will add some crunch to the texture of the mousse.
Fold the majority of this crushed praline into the melted milk chocolate mixture reserving some for decoration.
Whisk egg whites as above and fold into milk chocolate mixture as described above.
Carefully spoon on top of the dark chocolate mousse which should have set by this time and then chill again till just before serving. Can do up to this stage well in advance or even the day before but there is a fair chance it will get sampled before you intended if you leave it this amount of time!
For the Salted Hazelnut Caramel shards:
Up to a couple of hours before serving you can make the caramel hazelnut shards but don't make much before this as the caramel will start to melt down again and it doesn't like to be refrigerated either.
Put the caster sugar and water into a pan and heat gently, swirling and stirring if need be to make sure that all the sugar crystals have dissolved and there are no sugar grains sticking to the walls of the pan.
Once all the sugar has dissolved, turn up the heat and boil rapidly without stirring till the syrup reaches a deep golden caramel. You can very gently and occasionally swirl the pan as it starts to caramelise to evenly distribute the heat and colour. As soon as the caramel reaches the required colour (I like my caramel on the dark side of golden so that it is verging on bitter rather than sickly sweet) add the whole roasted hazelnuts and then pour mix onto a sheet of non-stick baking paper. Add a very light sprinkling of the sea salt flakes to the hot caramel at this stage if you like this combination, but you can omit if salted caramel is not your thing. When set and cold, break up
into shards.
To serve:
Sprinkle the top of the mousse with the reserved crushed hazelnut praline and either stick shards of the whole hazelnut salted caramel directly into the top of the mousse at jaunty angles or simply place these on the side plate as I did. Serve with a cream if desired or a Frangelico liqueur coffee .....got to use up that Frangelico somehow!! ;-)
P.S. - having eaten these after a roast dinner tonight I can safely say that this recipe would definitely serve 8 people as it is very rich and small portions might look stingy at first glance but your heart and hips would thank you for it ;-)
