February 10, 2007

Sure, anyone can do a cold chocolate foam, like this one! But how do you make a hot chocolate foam? How would you combine them?

It’s easy and here is how you do it.

Take 4 egg yolks and heat them in a large bowl. I use direct heat, you can use a double boiler. Add simple syrup, I use 3 cups sugar, 2 cups water, 2 T lemon juice. Add about 1/4 cup and whisk the egg yolk until they start foaming. Then add 2 cups of heavy cream.

Melt 12 oz of dark, I like 70% cocoa, with some butter (optional) and a little cream, 2 T. (You can add flavoring such as framboise. I like that.) When it melts add 1-2 t of corn starch, Kim and I like Argo. Then I whisk this into the heavy cream and egg and I put the it over a low flame and I whisk until it starts to boil. I take it off the flame and continue whisking for about 2 minutes.

I then pour it into a whip cream maker. Add the CO2, give it a good shake and let ‘er rip. Voila, hot stable foam. If you chill this foam, it’ll fall a little bit. But you can try layering this foam with the cold foam above. I layered my foam cold with my foam hot. Nice.

However, I think next time, I’m going to serve it hot. This is a cross between a whipped cream and a pastry cream. It’s airy and hot and good. Oh, by the way, it continues cooking in the whipping bottle so if it comes out a little thin to begin with, shake it a couple of times and it’ll set up very quickly. You have to move fast with this one.

Enjoy.