Mousse Troubleshooting

[Marky Marc]

So I made a mousse. I beat the yolks and whites seperately in a double boiler to 145 degrees. The yolks turned out fine. The whies on the other hand are very grainy.

Are they over or undercooked?

Explaination?

Fanx,

Marc

[HQAntithesis]

Could they be overcooked? The eggs might be cooking against a part of the bain marie or bowl which then gets mixed into the meringue. What shape is the vessel holding the whites? If it's a standard saucepan shape, there's a good chance of bits of egg white cooking along the outer perimeter of the base.

[alex chef]

It could also be that the whites are getting over whipped without cooking out proplerly.

Do you need to cook out the whites over a bain marie or could you make your mousse with an Italian meringue? therefore slightly/sufficently cooking your whites, but using a safer method.

What type of mousse are you making?

[alanamoana]

was there any sugar in the whites when you whisked them over the double boiler? if not, you don't have much protection against the whites actually cooking.

[sugarseattle]

you don't necessarily need to cook your whites, you can just beat them separately and then fold them into the yolk mixture. Here's the best method to beat whites.

Room temperature whites

beat on low speed until frothy, then SLOWLY add sugar. (if your recipe doesn't call for sugar with the whites, then use a little of the sugar from the other portion, about 1 tsp per cup of whites)

beat on medium speed...a slow beating will give you the most stable volume and allow you to control how far to whip them. I usually stop before I think they're ready. just sitting in the bowl they will stiffin up a little bit.

If you insist on heating your whites (as in safe meringue), just heat them in your bain marie, then when they reach 145 transfer them to your mixer and beat them there.

[Marky Marc]

Thanks for all the responses!

I cooked the whites and sugar in a bowl over a pot of simmering water while whisking it by hand. Had I known it wasn't necessary to cook them in order to achieve the necessary consistency, I never would have done it.

Whipping the yolks, whites, and cream seperately was one hell of a workout. I was dripping with sweat afterwards. If it's possible to over whip it by hand then I'm sure that has something to do with it. I felt like a freaking hummingbird.

This was for a chocolate mousse BTW.

[sugarseattle]

Yeah, you don't have to whip the whites over the bain marie to soft peaks, you can do that in a mixer. You probably didn't over whip, you probably just had some whites cook because your hand couldn't go as fast as a mixer...but maybe with practice we'll put you head to head with a kitchenaide!

[Marky Marc]

Yeah, you don't have to whip the whites over the bain marie to soft peaks, you can do that in a mixer. You probably didn't over whip, you probably just had some whites cook because your hand couldn't go as fast as a mixer...but maybe with practice we'll put you head to head with a kitchenaide!

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bring it on

[Mikeb19]

Just curious, why not make a pâte à bombe with egg yolks and whites together?

[Marky Marc]

Just curious, why not make a pâte à bombe with egg yolks and whites together?

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Well......... I have no idea what that is for one. Two, it was my first time making a mousse so I followed the recipe I had.

So what is a pâte à bombe?

[miladyinsanity]

Just curious, why not make a pâte à bombe with egg yolks and whites together?

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Well......... I have no idea what that is for one. Two, it was my first time making a mousse so I followed the recipe I had.

So what is a pâte à bombe?

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Drizzling soft ball sugar syrup into whole eggs whilst whipping said eggs.

[Yoda]

I tried my first attempt at a chocolate mousse. The chocolate seized after I added a little portion of the pate a bombe to it - not sure where I've gone wrong :/

 

I was following this recipe, which to me looked very promising. I halved the portion, so I used:

 

3 egg yolks (24 g)

100 g dark couverture chocolate (which was so sadly wasted...)

30 g heavy cream for pate a bombe (which was also my first time making it)

30 g granulated sugar

225 g heavy cream (for whipping)

 

I started by putting the chocolate in a bowl over boiled water (off heat) and stirred it a bit every now and then.

The I put the 30g cream and 30 g sugar mixture on the stove and let it boil for a bit. I slowly poured (very thin stream) this mixture into the egg yolks while whisking with a balloon whisk. The eggs didn't curdle, so I proceded to warm up the mixture over the stove, while constantly monitoring the temperature of it with a probe thermometer. The temperature was around 65 - 67C (cca. 150 F). I did this for about 2 min. I'm not sure the mixture got any thicker though - was this a mistake? And I was only whisking gently with a hand whisk.

With a handmixer at max speed, I beat the mixture until the pot no longer felt hot anymore. When I felt it with my hand it felt like body temperature.

 

Here is where I made an obvious mistake - but still unsure to which instant it played a role in the seizing of the chocolate. The video says the PAB should not be too cold (mine felt a bit cooler than body temp) so I left it above the water which previously was melting the chocolate (cca. 15 min later), so I didn't think the bottom would get that hot :/... Meanwhile I whipped the heavy cream to soft peaks.

 

I felt the chocolate, it was about the temp of body temp. Then I stirred the PAB that was sitting over the hot water - the bottom didn't feel too hot, but I did notice some chunks at the bottom of the pan, and it seemed like there was still some egg yolk that was really runny at the bottom... I was pretty sure there was no runny yolk after I had mixed it. Do you think the yolks might have curdled a bit and made the yolk runny? Or maybe I haven't mixed it well enough at all in the first place?

 

I thought I might as well try anyway, so I took a spatula and poured a bit of the PAB into the melted chocolate. As I started mixing, it started seizing more and more ... I knew there was no coming back and I was left with a chunk of very sad seized chocolate....

 

I threw away everything but the whupped cream which is waiting for my second attempt in the fridge.

 

Where did I go wrong? I would be grateful for some more details on what the temperatures should be (measurable with a thermometer) of the PAB, chocolate and whipped cream.

Also, is it correct to add the PAB to the chocolate, or would doing it the other way around be better?