Jacques Pépin's Chocolate Orange Mousse with Grand Marnier

This is a strictly for-adults-only dessert! Deliciously decadent orange infused dark chocolate combines with whipped egg yolks and whipped cream to make this beautiful mousse. It is so unbelievably moreish that it disappeared before it even had a chance to set.

I came about this divine concoction from Jacques Pépin's collection of recipes. To celebrate the launch of his new book 'Essential Pépin', some of us bloggers were contacted to see if we would be interested in trying out his recipes. Was I ever interested? My interest levels went sky high once I caught a glimpse of his stunning looking mousse. Jacques uses cognac and plain dark chocolate in his recipe, but I decided to play about with the flavours and replace the plain chocolate with this gorgeous orange infused one from Ten Thousand Villages. It's also fair trade, so soothes my conscience along with my tastebuds.

And after I made this mousse, well, all I can say is Raymond Blanc (my usual French chef crush) you have serious competition from Monsieur Pépin!

The orange flavours are pretty intense in this mousse. The pudding is almost marmaladey, with that dense slightly bitter taste that lingers after a teaspoonful of really good marmalade. Well, that's how this mousse tasted. It was simply indulgent, and I swear I felt almost guilty scoffing it all down, but the guilt washed away very quickly after that chocolate rush!

Aditi was peering around the corner as I was shovelling it in my gob, but I used the very reasonable excuse that it had alcohol in it to keep it all to myself (I know, bad bad mama!!) In my defence though, I did share some of the chocolate with her... she is very much a dark chocolate girl, and often I have looked up from some task I have been working on too see those tell tale dark smudges of chocolate around her mouth, usually snuck away from my nicely chopped pile... so I had no compunction with not sharing this pudding with her this time round. Like I said, adults only :-)

I made a few adaptations to the recipe. I halved it, as I really didn't want the temptation of this pudding sitting in the fridge, plus I also served it in dessert glasses. I am also not sure how dense it will be once its sat in the fridge for a while, as I pretty much ate it as soon as I had taken a few pictures. I also didn't use the additional whipping cream as I didn't want to feel that guilty about this dessert. So feel free to go with whatever you like. As its incredibly rich, I would also serve it in small shot glasses, with a curl of orange peel on top, maybe, to decorate. If you can actually resist the temptation to gobble every teeny bit up first, though!

Recipe:
(Printable Recipe)
Adapted from Jacques Pépin's 'Essential Pépin'

¼ cup sugar
2 egg yolks
100g dark orange chocolate (I used this one from Ten Thousand Villages)
¾ cup cream + an extra ¾ cup if you want to decorate with it
2 tsp Grand Marnier

Method:

Chop the chocolate into small pieces, and place in a double boiler or a bowl overtop a saucepan of simmering water. Make sure the bowl doesn't touch the water. Leave the chocolate until its all melted.

Whip the cream with 1 tbsp sugar, until soft peaks form. If using the extra ¾ cup, whip with another 1 tbsp of sugar until soft peaks form, then refrigerate it.

Place the egg yolks and the remaining sugar in a bowl, and place the bowl in a saucepan of hot tap water. Whisk for about 3 - 4 minutes, until pale and fluffy and doubled in volume.

Add the Grand Marnier to the yolks and stir. Then pour in the melted chocolate, whisking well, until smooth and creamy. If the chocolate starts to harden while pouring, quickly whisk in a couple tablespoons of the whipped cream, until smooth again.

Using a large spatula, very gently fold in the whipped cream into the egg yolk-chocolate mixture until just mixed, and don't over mix.

Pour into a chilled bowl or serving glasses, and pop into the fridge for at least two hours, until set. Serve with the extra whipped cream, if desired.