Chocolate Mousse (egg-free)

 BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE

A lot of good recipes also come with a good story. Here you go:

Once upon a time, I was pregnant (okay, once upon four times, I was pregnant, but this time was the last time). It was January and my baby was due on the 21st. I had been early for a few of my babies and I wasn't sure this one was going to make it that long. So I told her, "Baby, just make it till the double digits." Then, on January 9th, we went to dinner at our dear friends' house. She made this delicious spaghetti and I made this mousse. At about 5 the next morning, I started having contractions. Emma had managed to make it to the double digits of January, but just barely. I still blame/thank this mousse.

It is amazingly smooth, delicious, and easy. It is also egg-free, which is great if you're allergic or pregnant or just don't want eat raw eggs (which is the usual stuff mousse is made of, and yes you will be getting that type of a recipe later in the year, because I apparently love mousse kind of a lot).

This mousse has a bit of cream cheese, giving it the tinsiest bit of cheese-cake-ness, but not enough that people who don't like cheesecake will be bothered. My husband is not a huge cheesecake fan and, trust me, he was NOT bothered.

Chocolate Mousse (egg-free)
adapted from the Nordstrom Cookbook
Makes 6 small servings
Prep time: 15 minutes
Wait time: 2 hours (kind of optional--it gets a little firmer, but truly, you can eat it right out of the bowl)

8 oz cream cheese
1 C sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 C cocoa
1 1/2 C heavy cream, whipped (Note: You can do a bit less for a firmer mousse if you wish. It's basically diet mousse...)
Chocolate chips or shavings for garnish if you wish

First you can whip your cream if you're doing it yourself. Set aside.

Then in a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese. Add sugar and vanilla. Beat well. Add cocoa and beat, taking care not to beat it so fast that the cocoa poofs up in a mushroom cloud of chocolate dust.

When it's all incorporated, stop beating and fold in half the whipped cream. When just a few wisps of white remain, fold in the rest completely.

Chill for 2 hours.

Brownie Mousse Cheesecake

I should be posting red, white, and blue things right now. Instead I'm posting chocolate and cheesecake, and more chocolate. I still think it's pretty American.

My friend made a recipe similar to this for a party she threw a few months ago and it was so amazingly delicious that I knew I wanted to make it too. But when? My family is a little picky about cheesecake. So I worried that I would make this lovely, delicious thing, and have to eat it all by myself. There are worse fates in the world. But, well, I did turn 40 this year. And eating entire cheesecakes on my own didn't seem like the responsible thing to do. So I waited.

And then my niece visited. We had a birthday party for her. And she wanted cheesecake. Done and done. (P.S. EVERYONE--even devout cheesecake haters liked this recipe)

Now, I'm not gonna lie, this is fussier than a normal batch of cookies or wacky cake or whatever. BUT it is less fussy than something with three layers might normally be. The brownie is easy to throw together. The cheesecake is easy to throw together. The mousse is easy to throw together (and it doesn't have to be cooked).

That said, even though there is not too much hands on work, there is a very long, low cook time for the cheesecake, and several cooling periods. This needs to be made a day ahead when you have time to let things cool off. It just can't be rushed.

Now for a confession: I accidentally bought TWO fat free cream cheeses without realizing it. I pretty much consider fat free cream cheese Satan's cheese. But I unknowingly made my cheesecake anyway, and the texture was a little different than it should have been (which led us to discover my mistake). BUT it was STILL amazing. Even with the devil's cheese at its center. I'm sure there's a moral here somewhere, but I can't quite find it. Anyway, the point is that this is so good that even less than perfect ingredients will not destroy it (though, really, people, when making a brownie mousse cheesecake, please, just do the world a favor and use full fat cream cheese).

Brownie Mousse Cheesecake
makes 1 10-inch cake
Prep time: 30-40 minutes
Cook time: 2 hours (yup, you heard me)
Cost: Let's not talk about it on birthdays. Seriously, though--the total is about $8.50 or the cost of ONE slice of cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory, so it could be worse, right (unless you eat the whole thing yourself like an irresponsible adult, in which case, I cannot help you, friend)
Brownie layer: $1.50, cheesecake layer: $4.00, mousse layer $3.00 (Aldi prices)

Brownie: 

1/2 C butter (1 stick, partially melted)
1/2 C cocoa
1 C sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 C flour
3/4-1 C dark chocolate chips

Combine butter and cocoa. Add sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Beat in flour just until combined. Add chocolate chips.

Spread batter in a greased  9 or 10-inch springform pan.

Bake for only 10 minutes. It's going to look raw-ish. It's going to be raw-ish. That's because you're going to bake it more when you add the cheesecake layer, so don't fret.

Allow to cool (or mostly cool) before adding the cheesecake layer.

Cheesecake: 

3 packages cream cheese (24 oz total)
3/4 tsp lemon zest
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp whipping cream

Beat cream cheese. Add zest. Then eggs. Add vanilla and whipping cream.

Pour this mixture on top of your partially baked brownie.

Now you are going to do something slightly odd. You're going to bake it at a very low temperature for a very long time. This is going to keep your brownie from burning or overcooking while allowing your cheesecake to cook into velvety perfection.

Bake at 250 for about 2 hours or until the temperature at the center reaches 160. It'll still jiggle. [Note: Since I did make this with the wrong kind of cream cheese, you might want to check this before 2 hours to make sure that the weird fatless cheese didn't mess with it's cooking time somehow. I doubt it did but one can never be sure with the devil's cheese.]

Take it out and allow it to cool. This will take a few hours, so plan for that, my friends.

Mousse: 

2 Tbsp cocoa
5 Tbsp hot water
7 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghiradelli)
1 1/2 C heavy cream
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Combine cocoa powder and hot water; set aside.

Melt chocolate in microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until melted. Set that aside too.

Whip the cream, sugar, and salt. Instructions for whipping cream here if you need them.

Whisk the cocoa water into the melted chocolate. Be sure both have cooled somewhat (they can be warm, but not hot). Then fold part of the whipped cream into the mixture. Fold more in, and more again until it's a lovely chocolatey yum. This is mousse.

Spread it on the cooled cheesecake.

But you're still not done. It needs to set for about an hour. Otherwise it won't be as firm as it should be.

You can top this with a ganache or whipped cream and chocolate shavings (which is what we chose) or nothing at all).

All that waiting has been worth it. Enjoy!

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Vegan Coconut Lime Rice Pudding

I'm not a vegan and I won't even post a vegan recipe just for its veganiness That said, I often post a delicious recipe that also happens to be vegan. Truth be told, I didn't even realize this recipe was vegan at first. I was just experimenting with a coconut lime rice, and there it was. (I should also note that it is also completely gluten-free, so I'm pretty sure I'm not assured a spot in heaven.)

This recipe is also really really easy. In fact, you can make the base rice for this recipe to eat with any Thai or Asian meal, and then re-purpose it for dessert (should you choose; or you can just start with dessert; no one's judging here).

And while we're talking about re-purposing, you can absolutely eat this for breakfast. Make it with brown or black rice and you don't even have to feel the tiniest little bit guilty eating it for breakfast. Guys--it will be vegan, gluten-free, and whole grain. Not to mention that powerhouse in trendy nutrition: coconut milk. I'm just saying that you're probably a bad person if you don't do it. But, you know, no judgment.

Also, since this is rice based, it is so absurdly cheap for a dessert, well, I just can't help but love it. It comes in at about $.25/serving.

And did I mention that the hands-on preparation for this is less than five minutes...

Vegan Coconut Lime Rice Pudding
serves 8
coconut rice from Ahead of Thyme
Prep and cook time: 25 minutes
Cost: $2.10 (that's about $.25/serving)
rice: .25, coconut milk: 1.50, lime: .25, sugar: .10

2 C jasmine rice (any other type of rice works as well, but jasmine is my favorite)
1 can coconut milk
1 1/2 C water
1 lime
1/2 C sugar (regular will do, but if you're a real vegan, raw or natural sugars work too)
raisins (optional and I know they sound weird, but I liked them)

To prepare rice, put rice, coconut milk, and water into a saucepan. Stir it a bit to get rid of any large lumps in the coconut milk (alternately, if you have some foresight about lumps as opposed to myself, you can put the coconut milk and water in the pot and stir first, then add it to the rice). COVER with a lid and set to medium heat. Bring to boiling, reduce to LOW heat. Let cook until rice has absorbed all of the liquids, about 20 minutes. (If you don't cook this on low heat, you risk having the coconut milk burn/brown on the bottom of the pot.)

Remove from heat and let cool (you can leave a bit warm depending on whether you like your rice pudding warm or cold).

Add the juice from the lime. Add the sugar. Add a bit of lime zest if desired. Note: The truth is that the measurements for the lime and the sugar are COMPLETELY arbitrary (you heard me). You can make this as sweet or as tart as you like. I made it with several different levels of lime and sugar and found I pretty much liked it all ways. So start with a little of each, keep tasting and add more if you want.

Mix sugar and lime together with the rice.

Enjoy.

PRINTABLE RECIPE