Blueberry Cheesecake Mousse
The idea of a mousse always seemed so fancy. It’s not something I grew up eating and I don’t recall seeing it often on dessert menus. Last weekend, I asked our friends about their experiences with mousse to see if I was completely out of touch, but the conversation took a hard left when I realized they were responding like I was asking about eating moose, not mousse! When someone mentioned venison, I realized something had gone terribly wrong, LOL! Anyways… I’m here to do my part to encourage you to make mousse, not moose!
There are numerous techniques to making mousse, but the results are all fairly similar–imagine your favorite pudding, but instead of heavy and thick, it’s light and fluffy almost like it’s been infused with carbonation. That lightness comes from folding in whipped cream or whipped egg whites, sometimes both!
Chocolate and fruit purées are the most common base flavors here. When using fruit, you begin by concentrating the fruit flavor by making a reduction. That’s just cooking the fruit, sugar, citrus zest and juice, and a pinch of salt until it’s a maple syrup-like thickness. I love using my Pampered Chef Mix n Chop to help crush the fruit so they can release their juices and flavors as it cooks.
Cooking the fruit…
This is the same procedure you’d use to make a fruit coulis or even a fruit jam, the main difference is how long you’re cooking it. For this mousse, you don’t want to cook it too far or it becomes thick like molasses, and is hard to integrate into the creams. Remember that it will continue to thicken as it cools, so stop juuuust before you think it’s done.
Customizing it…
If you aren’t a blueberry fan, most any berry can be swapped in, though you’ll probably need to adjust the sugar levels. I talked about tasting your fruit in my Citrus Sponge Cake recipe, but it’s worth repeating here. Not only does the level of sweetness vary by fruit, but it can be different depending on when the fruit was grown and/or picked. Strawberries picked at the height of the season are going to taste vastly different than spring berries. You’ll need to take all this into account when using fruit in baking.
Tips…
It might seem counterproductive to add citrus or salt when you’re cooking fruit, but those additions are needed to balance and heighten the natural flavors. There is already so much sugar in raw fruit, and then we’re adding more on top of that–adding a hint of tart citrus balances that sweetness so it’s not one note. The salt meanwhile will actually bring out the sweetness and make it more intense! Next time you have an apple, sprinkle a few grains of salt on and see how it affects the flavor! The key is to get just enough salt that it enhances the fruit without making it taste of salt. Salted fresh watermelon is one of my favorite summer snacks! So, when you’re cooking fruit, don’t forget the citrus and salt!
Using a food processor makes pureeing the blueberries and incorporating the sour cream and cream cheese effortless. If you decide to use fruit that has seeds, make sure to strain it through a fine mesh sieve into the food processor after cooking it down so that your mousse remains silky smooth.
The whipped cream…
This mousse uses heavy cream whipped to medium peaks to aerate it, which also means this isn’t going to have an extremely long shelf life. Plan on using this within 3 days! If you want to dress up your presentation, you can pipe some whipped cream on top with the star tip, then add a fresh or frozen blueberry! Just don’t do that too far in advance, because the cream will only last so long, and a frozen berry will eventually bleed.
This week’s feature dessert…
This mousse is the main component of this week’s Feature Dessert, an Orange Blueberry Cheesecake Dessert Shooter. This personal-sized dessert has a layer of moist citrus cake, luscious blueberry cheesecake mousse, and is finished off with a rolled orange lace cookie that can serve as a utensil. It’s like a tiny glass of summer!
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Blueberry Cheesecake Mousse
Ingredients
- 180 g blueberries
- 81 g sugar*
- 2 g lemon zest*
- 12 g lemon juice*
- 1 g salt*
- 135 g sour cream
- 135 g cream cheese room temperature
- 169 g heavy cream
Instructions
- Combine fruit, sugar, zest, juice and salt in small saucepan over medium low heat.
- Cook, breaking down fruit, until syrup-like consistency.
- Remove from heat and transfer to bowl of food processor, process until smooth. Cool completely.
- Once cooled, add sour cream and cream cheese and puree until smooth
- Meanwhile, beat cream on medium speed, to medium peaks.
- Fold whipped cream into fruit mixture, in 3 installments. Fold until well incorporated.
- Pour into containers and chill for at least 1 hour or overnight.
