This eggless take on chocolate mousse is a breeze to make and a dream to eat
Chocolate mousse is one of those treats that broadcasts “date night!” or some other kind of special-ish occasion, and frankly, I don't mind the cliché. (Although it tastes just as good as a before-bed snack while you're wearing pajamas as it would in a little black dress, in case you were wondering.) Its pure chocolate flavor is classic, and it manages to be both rich and light at the same time.
Traditional chocolate mousse can be tricky to perfect when it comes to texture, and not everyone is comfortable with or medically cleared for the whole raw-egg thing. That's why I'm such a huge fan of this recipe from Serious Eats contributor and pastry wizard Stella Parks, culled from her debut cookbook, “BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts.”
Parks describes her whipped cremeux (“creamy” in French) as a cross between pot de crème and mousse. It will remind you of a mousse — hence our “almost-mousse” moniker — but it is egg-free and easier to make, and it'll last longer, too. The recipe combines a gelatin-stabilized pudding, straight out of your childhood memories of a certain packaged brand that begins with “J” and ends in “ell-O,” and softly whipped cream. I've made this four times, and each time it varied slightly. If you deflate the cream a bit too much in folding or find little bits of pudding that didn't disappear completely, no sweat. You'll still love it.
If you're more of a pudding fan, you can skip combining it with the whipped cream altogether, or serve the cream on top, and still have a fantastic treat.
Otherwise, serve the cremeux in your fanciest glassware … or those 14-year-old bowls you bought at Walmart (who, me?). As long as you're eating it, this unfussy dessert lives up to whatever the occasion happens (or doesn't happen) to be.