Isn’t chocolate a wonderful thing? I could start some rambling eulogy to its powers but instead I will just get right down to business – the creation of a boozy chocolate mousse and some accompanying chocolate truffles.

The diet coke is not required. And what’s the cherry liquer doing there – that bottle seems to be in everything we do on this blog

So first the mousse. You will need:

• 200g of dark chocolate (i.e. two bars)
• 6 medium eggs, separated
• 3 tbsp caster (superfine) sugar
• A glug of liquer (doesn’t have to be cherry brandy)
• 150 ml (a small pot) double (heavy) cream to serve

This recipe comes from Sainsbury’s ‘Cook Britain’ – a gem of a book which I pinch a lot of recipes from. To start the mousse, begin melting the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of water:

While it’s melting place the egg yolks in a bowl with the sugar:

Whisk with an electric mixer until it goes light in colour and thick & creamy in texture:

Lets just check in on the chocolate situation:

Doing well…

Let the melted chocolate cool for 5 minutes and then add to the egg yolk mixture:

Add your booze selection and stir:

Set the creamy chocolate goodness aside and get on with the egg whites.

Whisk the egg whites in another bowl with the electric mixer (which you’ve cleaned of course):

The egg whites are ready when they form peaks and cling to the whisks:

Add one big spoonful of the egg white to the chocolate mixture and fold it in (using a metal spoon):

Fold in the remaining egg white, folding not stirring to keep the air in the mixture:

Fill some ramekins, pots, or, as here, buttered food rings, with your chocolate bubbles:

Transfer to the fridge to chill for a couple of hours.

No rest for the wicked however. We need to make the truffles.

Chocolate Truffles

• 280g (3 bars) good-quality dark chocolate , 70% cocoa solids
• 284ml (large pot) double (heavy) cream
• 50g unsalted butter (i used a lot less – about 1/5 stick)
• 1 bar each of dark, milk and white chocolate to cover the truffles

It should be quite easy to make truffles but as you will see there are pitfalls. First break up the truffle chocolate in a bowl. Then heat the cream and butter in a pan until the butter melts and the cream starts to steam a bit. Then pour over the chocolate, stirring so the chocolate melts in the cream:

Looks okay?

Transfer to a bowl. Now what’s going on here? It’s separating:

The fat is pooling on top of the chocolate and its gone all lumpy. No good. But never mind. I bought so much chocolate we can just start all over again. This time we reduced the amount of butter and warmed the milk until it was finger hot, not bubbling as the recipe suggested. This time we got the desired result – smooth chocolatey ganache loveliness:

And very messy hands:

Put the ganache in the fridge to chill. Once set, melt the dark, milk and white chocolate in separate bowls for the truffle coating. Get a melon baller and scoop out a ball of chocolate from the set truffly stuff:

Spear with a fork (or just use a spoon – our ganache was a little hard as it didn’t have much butter in it but who cares) and coat the ball in chocolate of your choice:

Place the finished truffles on baking paper:

Keep going until everything and everyone is covered in semi-melted chocolate:

Mmm…some of those truffles look like they’ve been in a fight…

Now we decided to use the left over truffle stuff to make a giant truffle:

Double-dipped Mega Truffle

Place the truffles in the fridge to cool. The little truffles began to look like little forest critters (or was that the wine-effect?)

And the Double-dipped Mega Truffle was ceremonially drowned in dark chocolate and then decorated for good measure:

Now its time to find someone, anyone, who hasn’t eaten so much chocolate making this creation that they can still eat the final product (yes we haven’t forgotten the mousse):

Dig in!

For those of a more delicate constitution the lighter option is to just try a couple of truffles with a coffee:

And for hardcore chocolate monsters there’s the ‘Double-dipped Mega Truffle’

No way sunshine….

Still we need to see what the inside of a ‘Double-dipped Mega Truffle’ looks like:

The light can hardly get out its so dark and rich and mmmmmmm…………