A mousse is a soft prepared food that incorporates air bubbles to give it a light and airy texture.
It can range from light and fluffy to creamy and thick, depending on preparation techniques.
A mousse may be either sweet or savory and can be served either hot or cold.
Sweet mousses are typically made with whipped egg whites, whipped cream, or both, and flavored with one or more of chocolate, coffee, caramel, puréed fruits, or various herbs and spices, such as mint or vanilla.
In the case of some chocolate mousses, egg yolks are often stirred into melted chocolate to give the final product a richer mouthfeel.
Mousses are also typically chilled before being served, which gives them a denser texture.
Sweetened mousse is served as a dessert, or used as an airy cake filling. It is sometimes stabilized with gelatin.
Savory mousses can be made from meat, fish, shellfish, foie gras, cheese, or vegetables. Hot mousses often get their light texture from the addition of beaten egg whites.
The word “mousse” is French and translates as “froth” or “foam.”
Various desserts consisting of whipped cream in pyramidal shapes with coffee, liqueurs, chocolate, fruits, and so on either in the mixture or poured on top were called crème en mousse ‘cream in a foam’, crème mousseuse ‘foamy cream’, mousse ‘foam’, and so on, as early as 1768. Modern mousses are a continuation of this tradition.
The origins of chocolate mousse are relatively unknown. After being introduced to chocolate by the Spanish, French chefs have been cooking with chocolate since the early 17th century. It was only a matter of time until cooking with chocolate and making dishes with foamy textures came to gether for “mousseau chocolat.”
The first written record of chocolate mousse in the United States comes froma FoodEx position held at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1892.
A “Housekeeper’s Column” in the Boston Daily Globe of 1897 published one of the first recipes for chocolate mousse. The recipe yielded a chocolate pudding-type dish, instead of to day’s stiff, but fluffy, mousse.
Mousse became widespread with the introduction of electric mixers. The first mixer with electric motor is thought to be the one invented by American Rufus Eastman in 1885. The Hobart KitchenAid and Sunbeam Mixmaster (first produced 1910) were two very early US brands of electric mixer. Domestic electric mixers were rarely used before the 1920s, when they were adopted more widely for home use.
Fish mousse with brown bread and butter was a popular meal of American cuisine, and is still sometimes made as a party dip, although it’s not as common as it was in the 1950s.
The largest chocolate mousse weighed 225.34 kg (496.8 lb) and was prepared by the Aventura Mall (USA) in Aventura, Florida, USA, on 6 October 2013. The mousse’s ingredients included 108 lb of chocolate, 66 lb of butter, 24 lb of egg yolk, 20 lb of sugar, 50 quarts of heavy cream and 5 gal milk. Aventura Mall’s wanted to raise awareness and funds for the Children’s Craniofacial
Associationt. Children’s Craniofacial Association is a national non-profit organisation that addresses the medical, financial, emotional and educational concerns of children with craniofacial
conditions.