Perhaps not quite the thrill you’d get from actually eating chocolate, a night talking about chocolate with Hotel Chocolat’s Adam Geileskey is the next best thing. Adam will be discussing the scrummy stuff in Chorleywood and talking about the company’s new cookbook, A New Way of Cooking with Chocolate, which is filled with both sweet and savoury recipes inspired by the delicious and fragrant taste of cocoa. Here is one of the (sweet – so sweet) recipes for you to try at home.

Rabot 1745 Mousse Collection
Serves six

54 grams Dark Hacienda Iara 90%
75 grams whipping cream
150 grams whipping cream
66 grams Dark St Lucian 78%
75 grams whipping cream
150 grams whipping cream
62 grams Milk Trinidad 68%
75 grams whipping cream
150 grams whipping cream

For the Dark Hacienda Chocolate:
Break up the chocolate and place in a bowl
Bring 75 grams of the whipping cream to a boil, take of the heat.
Add the broken chocolate and stir until all the chocolate has melted.
Place in a bowl, cover and place in the refrigerator for 5 minutes.
Take the chocolate out and stir.
Cover and return to the refrigerator for another 5 minutes.
In a cold bowl whip the remaining 150 grams of whipping cream to just below soft peak. This term refers to, when you lift the whisk a short peak of cream barely holds its shape, before settling down in the cream again. Do not whip to a stiff peak, it will split the mousse.
Stir the chocolate and make sure the refrigerator hasn’t started to set the chocolate and all is a smooth emulsion.
Take a third of the whipped cream and fold into the chocolate with the whisk gently. Make sure all the cream has folded in.
Now very gently fold in the remaining cream. We need to keep as much air in the cream as possible to keep this mousse light.
Spoon around 46 grams into 6 small glasses.
Cover and set in the refrigerator for 2 hours until set.
This makes just one flavour mousse.
Repeat for the Dark St Lucian and the Milk Trinidad as above.

To serve these in the restaurant we add a pinch of sea salt on the set Trinidad mousse, a couple of kirsch-soaked cherries on the St Lucian mousse and a few toasted almonds on the Hacienda mousse.

  • Adam Geileskey is at Chorleywood Memorial Hall, The Common, Chorleywood on Monday, April 27 at 7.30pm. Details: 01923 283566, chilternbookshops.co.uk