WTF HAPPENED TO MY MOUSSE?!

As many of you know, my AWESOME husband got me a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer for my birthday.  Unfortunately, we tore our kitchen apart to paint and then the baby got the flu in the middle of that, so I have not had as many chances to break in that bad boy as I had hoped.

However, today everyone was healthy and the windows were open, so I grabbed my chance and decided to make the Double Chocolate Mousse recipe in the Kitchenaid recipe book that came with the mixer.

A word about my mixer:

It is so much more mixer than I am cook.  We got the professional 600, which as far as I know (which is not much), is the Ferrari of stand mixers.  I hear it can handle 14 cups of flour, or eight lbs of mashed potatoes.  Yes, eight POUNDS.  That is enough mash potatoes to satiate my DAD.  It comes with a "direct drive, all-steel gear transmission."  That is right.  My mixer has a transmission.  Are you impressed yet?

All of that being said, I will never use this thing to his full potential unless I gain super powers.  However, after our last handmixer started fire when I tried to use it to make bread, I wanted a mixer I could trust to get the job done.

My hope is that some day my great-grandson or daughter will have inherited this stand mixer and will proudly write in their blog how neat it is to have something that is a link to their past.  I hope it is amazing that the crazy woman sitting in the corner washing her hands and muttered about "kids these days" and "dragons" at all of their family functions growing up is the same lady who used the same hand mixer they inherited.

I hope they never know what a bad cook I was with it.

Admittdely, all I've made with it so far is butter, so I was ready for a challenge.  I read through the Kitchenaid recipe booklet that came with the stand mixer and read the mousse recipe.  I like mousse, so I thought, "Maybe." 

I did some extensive research on mousse.  I typed "mousse" into Google and a foodie site said mousse was "Surprisingly easy."  This was what I wanted.  Something that impressed my husband but was "Surprisingly easy."  So I went to Hy-Vee, got my ingredients, and decided to make mousse.

First, I asked Jason to watch the baby while I made the mousse.  He pointed out that it was late and he had to work in the morning.  I told him that I had read the directions and it would only take "About 15 minutes."  Jason said, "You've never made this before.  Its going to take longer than that.  I'm going to bed."  I hate when he is right.

So I got out my recipe, and followed along:

To Make  Mousse: Place bittersweet chocolate in one 3- to 4-cup microwave-safe bowl.

The ingredient list specifically said 6 oz. of bittersweet chocolate broken into 3/4in bits.  So, I got a knife and broke them into as small of pieces as I could:

Then I placed them in a microwave safe bowl:

Place white chocolate in a second microwave-safe bowl.

I didn't see the same kind of size of white chocolate as the bittersweet chocolate (Which was REALLY hard to find) at the store, so I bought this:

But the ingredient list said it was supposed to be 6 oz. of white chocolate broken into 3/4 in. pieces.  The package says this is 12 oz, so I needed exactly half of this package.  I don't have a scale, so I came up with an ingenious plan.  I poured the entire bag into this cup:

Which came out to exactly two cups of white chocolate.  Then I put 1 cup back in the bag and tada! half of the bag, or 6 oz. of white chocolate:

I poured the white chocolate in a microwave safe bowl:

 Cover each withwaxed paper.
I forgot to do this.

Place one bowl at a time into microwave oven and heat on HIGH for 1 1⁄2minutes. Stop and stir. If chocolate is notmelted, repeat process for 30 seconds at a time,or until melted. Stop and stir.
I did this. 

As you can see, a little bit of the bittersweet chocolate burnt, so I took it out of the bowl and threw the burnt part away:

While the chocolates were melting one at a time, I did this stage:

Heat cream:

...in a heavy saucepan:

...over medium heat until very hot, but do not boil. Remove from heat.:

/
There were some bubbles, but it didn't exactly boil.

Pour one cup of cream:

...into each of the chocolate bowls:

Stir each until completely mixed:

And:

Cover bowls and refrigerate about 2 hours:

Two hours?!?

Pour white chocolate mixture into mixer bowl.
This is when I started realizing something was wrong.  I took the bowl and easily poured the liquid-y mixture into the stand mixer:

Attach bowl and wire whip to mixer. Gradually turn to Speed 6 and beat 4 to 4 1⁄2minutes, or until soft peaks form.




Spoon about 1⁄3 cup mixture into each of 6 stemmed dessert dishes.Set aside.
Forgot to take picture.

Pour bittersweet chocolate mixture into mixerbowl.
This is where huge warning bells were going off in my head.  While the white chocolate poured into the mixer, this one looked like fudge:

And I had to scraped the bittersweet mixture into the mixer.  Still, I thought maybe it would be okay since the recipe said to:

Gradually turn to Speed 6, and beat about3 minutes, or until soft peaks form.
I thought maybe since the recipe said to beat it for less time it was normal for the two mixtures to be different.  So, since I don't really know what a soft peak might look like, I whipped it for 3 minutes:



Spoon about 1⁄3cup mixture over white chocolate layer.

Extreme close-up:

THIS is when I was sure something had gone wrong.  A double mousse could not possibly be expected to look so different. 

So I googled images of mousse.  It was not very helpful because some images looked like the white mousse:

And some images looked like the bittersweet mousse:

Cover dishes with plastic wrap or foil. Refrigerate 8 hours, or overnight.

Overnight?!?  I lost the picture of these covered and in the fridge, so you will just have to trust me.

The next morning, I made the raspberry sauce:

To Make Raspberry Sauce:Place raspberries in blender container. Cover andblend until smooth.

Now, when you thaw frozen raspberries they make a sticky mess, which no one told me about.  So the trip from the fridge to the blender ended with one of the dogs covered in raspberry juice, and both dogs helping me clean up:

Then I threw them in our Kitchenaid blender and blended into oblivion:

If you ever make this, be sure to listen to the "cover" directions:

 Pour mixture into a wire mesh strainer over a small saucepan; press withback of spoon to squeeze out liquid. Discardseeds and pulp in strainer.

Disaster here.  I don't have a "wire mesh strainer" so I used our white plastic strainer.  Well, at first I tried to use the small holes in the center of the strainer:

But none of the juic was coming through.  So then I tried to use the bigger holes on the outside:

But that didn't seem to be doing anything to keep the seeds and skins out.  And it was going through slowly for not even straining.  So, I gave up and threw it all in the saucepan:

...with the tablespoon of corn starch, 1/3 cup of water, and 1/3 cup of sugar the recipe called for.

Place remaining ingredients in saucepan. Cookover medium heat, stirring constantly, untilthickened and bubbly.

This part reminded me of the cranberry sauce recipe our Aunt Karla gave us for Thanksgiving.

Remove from heat and cool. Store sauce in covered container in refrigerator. Stir before using.  Spoon Raspberry Sauce over chocolate in dessert dishes before serving.

Despite something obviously going wrong, we still ate it.  I thought it was okay, Jason thought it was "Good. Really, really good."

So I don't know what I did wrong.  If you know anything about cooking, what do you think?  What happened?

Fun things to know about this recipe: Yield: 6 servings (2⁄3cup mousse and 1⁄4cupraspberry sauce per serving).Per serving: About 664 cal, 6 g protein, 53 gcarb, 48 g fat, 115 mg chol, 57 mg sodium.