Instant Chocolate Mousse

Nigella, oh, Nigella!!! Only YOU can come up with an absolutely delicious, gourmet chocolate mousse which requires no raw eggs, no setting and no fuss whatsoever.

G loves chocolate and I have always wanted to master at least one chocolate recipe to spoil him with. And what I found awesome about this one, is that it did not contain raw eggs. So I could also give it to the kids, should their fussy highnesses decided to have a lick!

It took me exactly 15 minutes by the clock, from the time I took out and laid out the ingredients, utensils and dishes, till the time I chucked it into the freezer!

Here is the recipe, from the culprit's page itself (for all those who want to buy "Nigella Express", most of the recipes are now available on her website, so don't waste energy and money!!):

INSTANT CHOCOLATE MOUSSE
When you haven't got time for overnight setting in the fridge or you don't want to use raw eggs, this mousse is perfect. In fact, at all times, constraints or not, it is chocaliciously gorgeous.


150g mini marshmallows (bought them from Nature's Basket)
50g soft butter (Parsi Dairy non salted butter is my current favourite)
250g good dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids), chopped into small pieces (used the cooking chocolate from Maker Arcade which is far from dark and far from packed with cocoa solids! So to compensate, I added a heaped table spoon of Hershey's cocoa powder while whisking the cream)
60ml hot water from a recently boiled kettle
1 x 284ml tub double cream (I used a packet of Parsi Dairy fresh cream)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


Put the marshmallows, butter, chocolate and water in a heavy-based saucepan.
Put the saucepan on the hob, over heat, though keep it fairly gentle, to melt the contents, stirring every now and again. Remove from the heat.
Meanwhile, whip the cream with the vanilla extract until thick, and then fold into the cooling chocolate mixture (I had my Masterchef moment and poured the chocolate mixture into a bowl, which I popped into another bowl full of ice cubes, to cool it faster) until you have a smooth, cohesive mixture.
Pour or scrape into 4 glasses or ramekins, about 175ml each in capacity, or 6 smaller (125ml) ones, and chill until you want to eat. The sooner the better!

I felt my mousse was a bit too liquid, so I put it in the freezer until it got a creamy, sticky, slightly toffee-like consistency, with beautiful tiny little bubbles on top.

And oh, letting you into a little secret here: The small, shot glass sized plastic containers were left behind by Moshe's when they catered at home for Bella's birthday. They were used to set jelly for the kids and tiramisu for the adults. I found the size and shape perfect for small desserts, and safe for little kiddie hands. So I conveniently "forgot" to return them.