For Valentine’s Day dessert, I thought a chocolate mousse would be nice. I had received a box of strawberries in my CSA shipment that week, so I thought I would incorporate them also. I remembered a strawberry mousse I had made probably 20 years ago, and thought it would be nice layered on top of the chocolate mousse.

The recipe for the chocolate mousse came from a recipe book by Fran Bigelow called “pure chocolate”. I’ve had the cookbook a long time, but don’t think I’ve ever made anything from it. But that’s not unusual for me-I love to read cookbooks, but don’t cook from most of them.
Here’s the recipe I used for the chocolate mousse (I cut the recipe in half, but used 3 egg yolks):
Dark-Chocolate Mousse Makes 2 1/2 cups or 8 generous servings
5 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
8 oz bittersweet chocolate (preferably 66% cacao), finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream, chilled
In the top of a double boiler or in a heat-proof bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar together until pale yellow and thick. A ribbon should fall back in the bowl when the whisk is lifted, and the sugar should begin to dissolve.
Stir in the water. Place over simmering water and cook, whisking vigorously, until the mixture is quite thick and coats the back of a spoon, about 160 degrees F.
Remove from the heat and add the finely chopped chocolate. Stir until melted. Continue stirring until the mixture is cool to the touch.
In a separate bowl whisk the cream until soft peaks form. Gently fold into the melted chocolate mixture. Cover and refrigerate about 4 hours. Serve cold.
For the strawberry mousse, I pureed a pint of strawberries with enough sugar to sweeten. Then I folded in 1/2 cup heavy cream, whipped. I just layer that on top of the chocolate mousse. I used E. GUITTARD 72% bittersweet chocolate, and maybe because of the extra egg yolks qty mine set up very firm (I also didn’t heat it to 160 like it called for, but it still thickened.). It was very chocolatey, and the contrast of the tart strawberries was very nice.