Chocolate Tofu Mousse--a foamy chocolate tofu for you

Today I’m going to give you a recipe for Chocolate Tofu Mousse.

Six bowls of Chocolate Tofu Mousse

Why would you want a recipe for Chocolate Tofu Mousse? Good question. There are plenty of delicious recipes for chocolate mousse that use wonderful rich cream instead of tofu. There are even recipes that don’t use any dairy at all, without using tofu. And I’m not going to tell you that you won’t taste the tofu. My daughter claims not to be able to taste it, but she likes tofu so much that she eats silken tofu right out of the package. Unless you like tofu as much as she does, you’re going to notice a slight tofu taste. It takes a little getting used to.

One possibility is that you are looking for a dessert with protein. Between the egg white and the tofu, this mousse does have some protein. But beware! This is not a health food. It has sugar and chocolate. It contains no vegetables, and probably has negligible fiber. If you want something really nutritious, make a fried tofu dish with lots of veggies, or a veggie-filled omelet! Those can be tasty, too.

It is possible that you are looking for a dairy-free mousse. Sorry, I use milk chocolate in this (although you don’t have to—the original recipe uses three ounces of bittersweet chocolate.) Alice Medrich has a dairy-free mousse in Bittersweet (I had the wrong title earlier) Chocolate and the Art of Low-fat Desserts, and I even made it once, though that was twelve years ago. I remember it as being tasty, if rather intense.

You might be looking for a dessert that will boost your calcium intake. I am still checking to see if there is a silken tofu that is high in calcium. The brand I used for this recipe turns out to use a different coagulant, apparently, and so has little calcium. I don’t know if that’s a feature of silken tofu more generally, as compared to the non-silken type used for frying.

It’s probably pretty safe to say that it has less fat than more typical versions of mousse involving heavy cream. It doesn’t taste as rich either—you wouldn’t want to serve a cream-based mousse in the portions I show here. You’d get indigestion. I’m not sure whether “can be eaten in larger quantities” is actually a selling point, but there you are. A foamy chocolate dessert that is lighter than a cream-based mousse.

Chocolate Tofu Mousse (6 generous servings or 9 discreet ones)

12.5 oz silken tofu (the kind in aseptic packaging is unrefrigerated till opened)

3/8 cup Dutch-process cocoa

2 oz milk chocolate, chopped

1 ½ oz semi-sweet chocolate chips (about ¼ cup)

3/8 cup boiling water

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

9 tablespoons liquid pasteurized egg white

½ cup sugar

Bring measured pasteurized egg whites to room temp or thereabouts if possible. They will not whip as well as regular egg whites, so give them every advantage. Also be sure that the measuring cup, mixing bowl, and whisk are all free of oil or grease. (Note: you want to whip egg whites around room temp, whereas you whip cream when it is good and cold.)

Ingredients

Puree the tofu in a food processor until it is velvety-smooth, perhaps 2 minutes.

Velvety smooth silken tofu

Combine cocoa and chopped chocolates with boiling water in medium bowl. Stir till smooth. Then I like to add the chocolate to the food processor, along with the vanilla, and really mix it into the tofu. But you could also put the pureed tofu in the bowl and stir there, I expect.

Rinse bowl (if you did as I do) and then scoop all the chocolate mix back into it.

Chocolate mixture blended with silken tofu

Be sure to wash or at least thoroughly rinse all parts of the food processor before the tofu dries on it.

Now whip those eggs whites. Start in stand mixer (if you have one) with a whisk on medium. After they get a bit frothy, start adding the sugar. Increase the speed to high. It takes a while, maybe ten minutes, to get soft droopy peaks. Maybe if you continued, you could get it stiffer—I chicken out at this point since I’m not confident pasteurized egg white can whip that stiffly. Soft peaks still works for this mousse.

Whipped egg whites

Gently fold about a quarter of the whipped egg white into the chocolate mix to lighten it. Then add the lightened chocolate mix to the bowl of egg whites and fold till just blended. Spoon or pour mixture into dessert cups. Cover with plastic wrap (plastic should not touch mousse) and refrigerate three hours or more before serving.

 

The original recipe for this (from Weight Watchers Magazine) was for a mint-chocolate tofu mousse that used only bittersweet chocolate and cocoa, and added 3/8 tsp peppermint extract. You can use 3 oz bittersweet chocolate instead of the mix of milk and semi-sweet, for a more intense chocolate flavor. I would not recommend more than 1/8 tsp peppermint, though.

You can use powdered egg white and water instead of liquid egg whites. It would probably whip better. I just don’t like the extra step of hydrating the egg.

Till next post.