I belong to a group which meets once a month to speak French over a pot luck lunch. We take it in turns to host the lunch and the food is always amazing. All you have to do is let the hostess know you will be attending and whether you will bring a sweet or savoury dish, to make sure we don’t end up with too many desserts and not enough savoury dishes.
This delicious dessert was brought last month by Vanessa, one of the members whose husbands work at the French Embassy. It’s very easy to make and Vanessa kindly shared the recipe. It’s not really a cake, more a sliceable chocolate mousse. The texture is more like a panna cotta or a rich chocolate jelly than a mousse.
4 Tbs cocoa powder
¼ cup water
2 cups milk
1¾ cups cream
½ cup condensed milk
5 Tbs sugar (I cut it back to 3 Tbs)
200g dark chocolate, chopped
5 tsp gelatine powder
½ cup water
To serve:
Cocoa powder
Thick pouring cream
Fresh berries
Mix cocoa powder and ¼ cup water to a smooth paste. Heat milk, cream, condensed milk and sugar in a saucepan. Add chocolate paste and chopped chocolate and stir until melted. Mix gelatine powder with ½ cup water in a small bowl, then zap briefly in the microwave to dissolve. Add to the mixture in the pan.
Line a loaf tin with a capacity of about one and a half litres or six 250ml cups with non-stick baking paper. I used a triangular one, but a rectangular one is fine. Pour the chocolate mixture into the pan through a sieve, in case there are any undissolved bits. Refrigerate overnight.
Tip the mousse out onto a serving platter and remove the paper. Cover with sifted cocoa powder. Cut into thick slices and serve with cream and berries.
Serves about 12
What a pleasure to share all these recipes with all of you!