White Chocolate Mint Mousse

Another crazy June weekend?  For me that means Stour Festival, a welter of puddings and fabulous early music!   This weekend, I took over as Queen of Puddings, and must have used two gallons of cream in producing many old favourites (at the sidebar there's a new label "Stour Festival Puddings" to give you a flavour!) and some experimental ones.    The challenge at Stour is to feed an unknown number of incredibly hungry singers, musicians and helpers, from a tent with no facilities apart from a plug and some hot water, in all weathers.   Bring it on!!!   I managed to produce the expected groaning board, and included this new chocolate and peppermint mousse.  This is the un-decorated version - there wasn't time to photograph it before it got eaten....

The mousse part of this is taken from Delicious Magazine's White Chocolate Mousse, but I added a dark chocolate base to give it stability and make it easier to cut up.  Serves 8-10.  If you used gluten free digestive biscuits, it would be a lovely gluten free treat.

White Chocolate and Mint Mousse

White Chocolate Mint Mousse

8oz/225g crushed digestive or Hobnob biscuits

4oz/100g plain dark chocolate

1lb/500g white chocolate (good quality!)

1 pint/600ml double cream

2 egg whites

1 tsp peppermint essence (at least – I like a good minty flavour)

Mint leaves to decorate

Dark chocolate to decorate

Use a 9” spring clip tin, and line the base with non-stick parchment.    Melt the dark chocolate, either in the microwave, or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water – don’t let the water touch the chocolate.   Mix in the crushed biscuits and spread it evenly in the tin.  Put the base into the fridge while you assemble the mousse. 

Now melt the white chocolate the same way (it is best to stop heating when it still has visible chunks of chocolate, and allow the residual heat to melt the remaining chocolate).  Allow this to cool a bit – this is important, because otherwise it goes stiff when you add the cream.

Whip the double cream and egg whites, with the peppermint, until it is starting to thicken, but still soft (taste and add more peppermint at this point if you like an intense burst of flavour).   Fold an initial spoonful of cream into the chocolate to break it up a bit, then fold in the rest of the cream, stirring gently until it is smooth.   Pour over the biscuit base and chill for at least two hours. 

Decorate with mint leaves and grated dark chocolate and serve not quite straight from the fridge, but slightly warmer so that the peppermint flavour sings through (like a good soprano soloist!).