To spite my good intentions and of course to remind me not to be too self-congratulatory I ended-up wasting EVERYTHING that I brought to my mom’s last week.

Her fridge died and the milk made some really skanky cheese.  I don’t mean the kind of smelly cheese that you eat by yourself with peaches and sweetmeal biscuits, I mean a disgusting cheese-like product.  Yogurt, oranges, cheese and leftovers also went into the bin.  Ick! 

Luckily we got the fridge fixed the next day.

I have also tossed (I should be fined for this) a small jug of pouring custard that got forgotten once the apple crisp was gone.

AND oddly, a blob of dough that should have been made into bread an embarrassingly long time ago.

To salt my wounds (pardon the pun) I’m going to eat an embarrasing amount of this delicious dessert that I found in  House and Home (July issue) magazine.  It won’t heat-up my house but I don’t think that the weight I’ll gain will have a cooling affect 🙂  I’ve rewritten the recipe in the way that I like to cook, the magazine had it nicely laid out with ingredients first and then the method.

Dark Chocolate Mousse with Salted Caramel Sauce (it says that it serves 6 but let’s not pretend. I doubled the recipe)

1)  In a doubleboiler melt; 5 oz dark chocolate and 2 T. butter.

2)  In a small saucepan, bgin 1/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup of stong coffee to a boil (boil 2 minutes).

3)  Separate 4 eggs (save the whites for meringue another day-just freeze them).  Whisk the yolks and slowly drizzle in the coffee mixture.

 If you don’t have another pair of hands or haven’t grown that third arm that you’ve been hoping for, just make a ring out of a tea towel to hold the bowl. 

3)   Whip 1 cup of cream until it forms stiff peaks (after a million times of getting whipped egg whites or cream all over my kitchen I finally figured out that if I just put the bowl in my sink and whipped I would have zero mess) and fold into the chocolate deliciousness.  Chill for at least 3 hours.  Word of advice:  Cover the mousse and hide it in the back of the fridge otherwise many helpful tasters will dip spoons into it while it is setting.

4)  Now for the sauce.  In a medium saucepan bring 3/4 cup of sugar and 3 T. of water to a boil. 
Boil until it turns an amber colour (be carefull-amber turns to burnt VERY easily). This will take about 7 minutes.

5)  Remove from heat and add 3 T. butter (a little at a time because the water in the butter will make the sugar bubble up and this is a little scary).  Look up in the top corner-I almost burnt this because I was cooking chicken and feeding the baby at the same time.  Not smart.

6)  Stream in 1/3 cup cream.  Then 1 T. lemon juice and 1 1/2 tsp.  sea salt.

7)  To serve:  take a little mason jar and spoon in some mousse.  Top with a bit of whipped cream, caramel sauce and then mousse etc. until you reach the top and end with caramel and dust with a bit of fleur de sel.  You don’t have to serve it in a mason jar but that’s what they had in the magazine and I thought it looked super cute.

Wear a very large maxi dress to cover the damage that this dessert will do to your waistline.  Old Navy has a really cute one that I have my eye on.

I love hearing from you. Leave a comment-make my day.