Experimenting with molecular gastronomy: chocolate chantilly with beer

I have only recently started experimenting with chocolate but so far I have found it quite enjoyable to tackle with this fickle substance that tends to drive you nuts by crystallizing into the wrong form (see Wikipedia on tempering). I ran into chocolate chantilly - which is essentially chocolate mousse without cream or eggs – in a Finnish molecular gastronomy blog (link), and immediately found the concept interesting.

The idea of a chantilly is to dilute a fatty emulsion (in this case, molten chocolate) so that the fat content is the same as that of cream (37 %). One possible problem with chocolate is the uncontrolled crystallization of the cocoa butter that may result in a grainy and unappealing texture. This can be avoided with tempering. The recipe I used did produce a perfect result in this sense: I managed to get a nice and smooth chocolate mixture. However, I encountered another problem which was, to my belief, due to a too low a fat content of the emulsion (too little chocolate, too much beer): the chantilly didn't turn into a mousse but resembled a thick sauce. For a while I thought about how to fix it and decided to try a radical solution – adding some (odourless) oil into the mixture. And surprisingly enough, it actually worked! The sauce turned into a beautiful mousse! The quantity of the oil was so small – about one teaspoonful – that it didn't affect the taste in any negative way. If you need to fix the thickness, pour the oil in slowly while whipping the chocolate–beer emulsion with the electric mixer.

My verdict
The experiment was a success because:
– the recipe actually worked,
– I successfully repaired it when it wasn't quite what I wanted (adding the oil),
– the texture was wonderful.

It was not a success because
– my husband didn't appreciate the taste. However, I didn't use porter as was mentioned in the original recipe but Innis&Gunn Oak Aged Beer which I have drank with chocolate and thought, therefore, to be suitable.

Well, I have to admit that I did enjoy the combination of dark chocolate and beer in some weird way. However, I still think that some other combos might work better (take, for example, Fooducation.org's Earl Grey and milk chocolate chantilly). I have noticed that mixing chocolate and alcohol works better in theory than in practice, so I think I'll avoid that in the future. I do find the idea of chocolate chantilly very appealing, so this won't be the last of it, I'm sure!

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Warning: Making this will result in a very messy kitchen. Both your kitchen and you will be covered in chocolate spatters before the mousse is ready.

You need:
75 g dark chocolate
1 dl porter (or other beer that you think would go well with chocolate)
0,5 g gelatin leaf (soak in cold water for a while)
(some tasteless oil, e.g. rapeseed oil, just in case)

3 litre (or so) pan
bowl (can be plastic)
electric mixer
food thermometre

1. Melt the chocolate in the microwave oven (carefully, don't burn it!).
2. Heat the beer into 60 °C and add the gelatin leaf, let the gelatin dissolve.
3. Make a hot water bath: put some hot water into the pan and then place the bowl onto the water. Start your mixer and start whisking the beer. Pour the chocolate slowly into the bowl while whisking. (Aaagh, the spatters!)
4. When all the chocolate is in, remove the bowl from the hot water and continue whisking. Start measuring the temperature.
5. When the temperature reaches 24 °C the chocolate crystallizes and the mixture will start solidifying fast.
6. Put the bowl back on the hot water and continue whisking until the temperature reaches 28 °C.
7. Move the bowl onto a cool surface and continue whisking until the mixture resembles soft whipped cream. If the mixture stays liquid despite all the mixing, add some oil (a teaspoonful at a time) to fix the fat content, and you should have a mousse. If the taste isn't sweet enough, you can mix in a little bit of powdered sugar.