My Mousse is Problematic

[woodwardiocom]

It keeps separating, and won't set.

The recipe is from the 1966 bilingual cookbook la pâtisserie est un jeu d'enfants.

Separate 3 eggs.
Grate the rind of 1 lemon over yolks.
Add the juice of the lemon.
Add 3 oz. cream cheese, 2/3 cup fine sugar.
Beat well with whip.

Beat whites until very stiff.
Add contents of first bowl.
Mix very quickly.
Chill in refrigerator.

Notes: I doubled the recipe. After a night in the fridge, I had foam on top and soup on the bottom. Reasoning that it's the whites that add stiffness, I tried whipping another three whites and folding them in. No improvement.

My judgment of "very stiff" may be faulty. I kept beating until, when I took the mixer out, the peaks left behind just sat there, without settling at all. Then I beat it a little more, then stopped.

There's also some peril in the measurements, given that this is a 1960s non-metric French cookbook translated into a compromise between American English and British English. The "cup" might not be an American cup.


Any advice from Chef LJ? Can my mousse be saved? Or is it now a dessert topping?

Comments

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

that ought to have worked, I can't see any obvious flaws in the recipe

[sir-goober.livejournal.com]

It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping!

(sorry)

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure, never having made mousse, but if you post to cooking, you might get some good answers. There are a lot of people there, and someone's bound to be a mousse expert.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Merci, my friend. Done.

[abookmom.livejournal.com]

Is it possible that you had a shred of yolk or other substance (sugar? floor wax?) in your whites? My daughter had this problem with whipping egg whites. She nearly whipped the life out of them before realizing--they can NOT be whipped unless they are JUST egg whites, nothing else. Chilled bowl, chilled beaters, nothing else can rescue them.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

Sugar is okay for that. When I make meringues, the sugar goes in before you start whipping. And vanilla extract (or almond, or whatever). The only thing that will disturb your whipping is fat (oil, egg yolk, etc).

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

The whites were stiff, no question. They held their shape when I took the beater out. They may not have been stiff enough, but when I make chocolate mousse, I don't beat them any longer, and that works.

[jlhlinnell.livejournal.com]

I know nothing of preparing mousse, so this is an unhelpful post.

But when I read "mousse", I initially referred to "hair gel" - and couldn't for the life of me wonder why our shaven mr. Woodward was looking to make his head sticky.

[pale-chartreuse.livejournal.com]

My sympathies. I'm cooking for Passover and have made about 4 major cooking mistakes in the past three days (Classic mistakes, I didn't reread the recipes because I have done them so many times). I've been lucky on my saving throws, though. The burnt sugar syrup was the only thing I had to dump.

You might be able to recycle your mousse into lemon squares. Add flour or cornstarch (1/2 cup or so) to the soup and a couple of whole eggs (two or three) , pour over a graham cracker crust. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes and edges are slightly browned. Cool in fridge and serve with the foamy topping.

[takayanagi.livejournal.com]

ok i have a few questions,
-did u make sure that the bowl and any utensils(for the whites) was totally clean and had no water?
-when u whipped the whites, were they completely whipped?(the test for that would be to hold the bowl over ur head and the whites wouldnt move...or fall on ur head)
-when adding the yolk mixture to the whites, did u 1st add about a tbp of whites to the yolk and mix it in to 'loosen' it a bit and then add the yolk mixture to the whites?

if its yes to everything then.... perhaps u could whip up the mixture u have right now to amalgamate it and add a bit of gelatine to it. the gelatine should set it to a mousse.