Food From Fiction- Revenge: Chocolate Mousse with Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur with Bols Foam

I generally don't pay much attention to the brands that sponsor television shows these days but one keeps grabbing me. My Monday night ritual is coming home from my choir rehearsal and settling onto the sofa just in time to watch Revenge. It's cheesy and trashy and has that sort of Dynasty-glitz about it, but I love it. The show is sponsored by Chambord black raspberry liqueur, which I'd never heard of before, but the advert is genius - the purring voiceover wouldn't sound amiss coming from Victoria Grayson as the female voice suggests "take pleasure in the delicious darkness of revenge, sponsored by Chambord French black raspberry liqueur."

When I came across a recipe for another Food from Fiction post I wanted to make, which required raspberry liqueur, I decided this was a great excuse to buy a bottle of Chambord. It's not cheap - about £20 for 70cl - but comes in a very ornate round bottle complete with a recipe leaflet full of cocktail ideas. I'll definitely be trying out one or two of them!

There's something about Revenge, with its decadence, luxurious lifestyles and dark secrets that made me think of chocolate mousse - and with a kick of black raspberry liqueur I think this dessert would be perfect for Emily Thorne.

I got the basic chocolate mousse recipe and an idea to use sponge fingers from Josie's Kitchen but also adapted the recipe and the way the dessert is served it to fit another idea I'd had. Check out the way Josie has made hers with fresh raspberries though (something I don't like) - it looks great.

These quantities serve two but make a relatively small portion.
For the mousse you need:100g dark chocolate
1 egg, separated
1 tsp vanilla flavouring
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream
2 tbsp Chambord black raspberry liqueur

To assemble you need:
3 or 4 sponge fingers
2 tbsp Chambord black raspberry liqueur
Bols Foam - cassis flavour. Read on for an explanation...

Whisk together the egg yolk, vanilla flavouring and sugar

 Melt the chocolate in the microwave or a bain marie

 Stir in the cream

 Next stir in the egg yolk mixture. At this point I was starting to think I should have used a bigger bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg white until stiff

Fold in to the chocolate mixture - I added the chocolate to the egg white rather than the other way round as the egg was in a much bigger bowl.

You end up with a lovely glossy chocolate mousse

Here's the Chambord black raspberry liqueur, which I hadn't tried before but now I'm a big fan! (No this is not a sponsored post....)

Add a dash or 2 tbsp of the liqueur to the chocolate mousse.

Break up the sponge fingers in the bottom of two individual serving dishes. Pour 1 tbsp raspberry liqueur into each dish and leave the sponge fingers to soak for a few minutes.

Spoon the chocolate mixture on top. This is when I decided I should have used smaller serving dishes or doubled the recipe!

Now for something a bit different. I ordered my bottle of Chambord from an online drinks distributor (as I couldn't find it in my local supermarkets as they are quite small shops). While I was on the website, I noticed this:

I've bought Bols products several times in the past, as they make some nice flavoured liqueurs and triple sec and so on that are good for cocktails. This is something new I hadn't come across before - a liqueur that turns into a foam!

The box comes with a small-ish bottle of Bols - I chose cassis flavour as that was the closest they had to raspberry - and a small pump.

Simply open the bottle, screw in the pump and you're good to go. The website shows the foam being served on the top of a cocktail which I think looks quite fun, but in this case I decided it would be the perfect finishing touch for my dessert.

Just give the  bottle a couple of pumps and the foam comes out - here you can see it sitting on top of the chocolate mousse. It gave a very unusual and I think enjoyable topping to the dessert and the flavours worked really well together. You can taste the alcohol in the foam as well which is fun!

My obsession with Revenge also ties in nicely with this month's Baking with Spirit, hosted by Janine at Cake of the Week, as the ingredient this month is raspberry liqueur.