Waiting and Cooking in the Meantime

Mr B and I are still waiting to hear about the house we put an offer in on.  The tension is killing me!  I can't get my head around the fact it would take someone four days to decide whether your offer is acceptable or not... Instead of my normal thoughts revolving around food, my head is full of house house house.  Nevertheless, it was posh tea time last night, and I have to confess I pulled off a cracking three courses, which rarely seems to happen as I am so critical of what I cook.  The trouble with trying to blog about posh teas is that I am trying to get something to the table, so I can never quite get the photos done properly.  Plus I have normally had enough wine to make me sloppy at photographing.

Anyway we had: Miniature spinach and ricotta cannelloni

Roasted Rump of Lamb with Shallot Puree and (a variation of last week's) Bean Salad

Baked Chocolate Mousse with Caramelised Bananas and a warm chocolate sauce.

If I tried to write all of these recipes, you and I both would get total recipe fatigue, so I will stick with dessert for now!  (By the way, I am getting a recipe backlog at the moment, I can't blog fast enough)

Baked Chocolate Mousse with Caramelised Bananas and a Warm Chocolate Sauce (serves 4)
The ingredients for this are not complicated, but you will need some small ramekins or dariole moulds to cook the mousses in.  Alternatively, you could treble the quantities and make enough for a 20cm cake tin and make a whole cake of baked mousse...mmm.

50g butter (plus a bit more for greasing your tins)
100g good quality dark chocolate
2 eggs, separated
20g caster sugar
2 bananas
Icing sugar

For the Sauce
80g dark chocolate
knob of butter
dash of double cream

1) Preheat the oven to 180C and grease 4 dariole moulds or ramekins.
2) Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water
3) Meanwhile, mix the yolks and 10g sugar together.
4) In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites into stiff peaks and then add the remaining sugar and whisk until the whites are glossy.
5) When the chocolate and butter is completely melted, remove from the heat and add the egg yolks and sugar.
6) Slowly fold in the meringue.  To do this, I always add one smallish tablespoon full first to get the mix going, then I add the rest in two or three batches.  Make sure the egg whites are fully combined, but don't overfold or else you will lose all the air.
7) Divide the mousse between the four moulds and place in the oven for around 10-15 minutes.  Keep an eye on them.  They will puff up nicely almost like souffles, and when they are cooked they will be firm to the touch. 

8) Just before you are about to serve, cut the banana into long slices. Place on a baking tray, dust liberally with icing sugar and using a blowtorch caramelise them until brown and bubbling. I think you could also do this under a hot grill, but the bananas may go a bit mushy with the heat...

9) For the chocolate sauce, melt the chocolate and then add the butter and cream. Stir well.
10) Remove the mousses from their moulds and plate up with the banana, and drizzle with the chocolate sauce. Enjoy!

This mousse is very rich and "grown up". It doesn't have oodles of sugar in it, so it's very intense, but offset with the sweet bananas. We loved it and Mr B has said I can definitely make it again!

In the meantime, I will keep on waiting to hear about the house....