Toasted White Chocolate Mousse Recipe

When it comes to sophisticated desserts, there's not much that can beat a chocolate mousse. This version, developed by Tasting Table's Jennine Rye, is certain to impress your guests and satisfy that sweet tooth.

Mousse is thought to have been invented, not by a chef, but by the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and is at its simplest the result of aerating a base of one sort or other. Because of its light and fluffy texture, you can make a mousse out of a number of base ingredients, including some savory ones, such as an avocado mousse. It is, however, most commonly made sweet and served as a dessert, and chocolate mousse is an enduring favorite.

In this recipe, white chocolate is toasted before making the mousse. This process gives the white chocolate a nuttier and more caramelized flavor as well as a richer golden color, which adds complexity and depth to the resulting dessert. Combine that with a beautifully light and airy texture, and this mousse is the perfect dessert to follow a hearty meal. It can be garnished with a simple dollop of whipped cream, or you could top the mousse with a few berries to complement the sweetness of the toasted white chocolate. 

To begin this toasted white chocolate mousse recipe, first you will need to gather the ingredients. You will want white chocolate, eggs, butter, whipping cream, and granulated sugar.

Preheat the oven to 250 F.

Lay out the white chocolate on a baking tray covered in a sheet of parchment paper and place in the oven for 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and scrape the chocolate around the pan; it will have become quite grainy at this point. Repeat this every 10 minutes for 40 to 50 minutes until the white chocolate is smooth and a lovely golden color.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites, place the egg whites to one side.

Cool the toasted white chocolate for 5 minutes, and whisk in the egg yolks and butter to form a smooth shiny mixture.

Whip the cream until soft peaks form.

In a stand mixer, beat the egg whites until they are foamy, and slowly incorporate the sugar into the mixture one teaspoon at a time, until the egg whites form peaks.

Using a spatula, gently incorporate the whipped cream into the cooled toasted white chocolate mixture.

Using a balloon whisk,  gently incorporate the egg whites into the white chocolate mixture to create the mousse.

Spoon the mousse into individual glasses and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Serve topped with a little extra whipped cream and some grated white chocolate if desired.

Toasted white chocolate is growing in popularity. In fact, you may have come across it before at Starbucks, which offers a range of products featuring toasted white chocolate. Whether it's in hot chocolate, mochas, or lattes, toasted white chocolate is definitely becoming a firm flavor favorite.

Because white chocolate is made of only a short list of ingredients (sugar, milk solids, and cocoa butter), it can be considered as something of a simple, though delicious, flavor. However, the process of toasting white chocolate in the oven helps the sugars to slowly caramelize, which causes them to deepen, making the resulting product much richer and more complex in taste. The process is really easy: Just bake the white chocolate at a low temperature, stirring often, until it becomes golden brown. It will become grainy throughout the process, but if you stick with it and keep stirring, it will get back to a lovely silky smooth texture. This is an easy way to enrich the flavors in any white chocolate dish, just remember to use white chocolate with at least 30% cocoa butter for best results. 

For some people, the fact that mousse is made with raw eggs and doesn't require any form of cooking can present a bit of a concern. It's true that raw eggs do present a risk of salmonella, which is a common source of food poisoning. However, you can vastly reduce this risk in a number of ways: Firstly, by selecting eggs from farms with better animal welfare conditions, and then by keeping the eggs refrigerated (but remember to bring them to room temperature ahead of making the mousse).

There is also a very handy egg safety tip to test the freshness of an egg. Fill a glass or a bowl with water and lower your egg into it. If it sinks to the bottom and lies on its side or its point it is fresh and good to eat. If it floats to the top of the water, that is a sign that the egg is past its best. With a few simple measures, it's perfectly possible to consume raw eggs in a safe manner. 

This mousse recipe incorporates whipped cream, which, though simple, is not necessarily the easiest culinary technique to master. Luckily there are a few tips that will help you to obtain that lovely airy texture and avoid some of the potential pitfalls. The first thing to bear in mind is that some types of cream are good for whipping, others not so much. For best results, you need a cream with the right fat content. Look for something in the region of 30%. Any less than that and it won't whip, but creams with too high of a fat content will end up losing that fluffy texture.

Of course, you can use an electrical appliance to do the hard work — you can use a hand blender, a stand mixer, or even a smoothie-making blender. For best results though, we recommend using a balloon whisk; this method allows you the most control over the resulting cream. You can keep a closer eye on the process and stop precisely when it reaches that perfect consistency of thick and fluffy and before it turns to butter.