Chocolate Bavarois

First of all, I used to not really know the difference between Bavarois and Mousse. After serching online and asking Micha, my French culinary class teacher to make sure, the answer is:

Bavaroi: creme anglaise (cooked egg yolks, milk and sugar) based and uses gelatin to stabilize.

Mousse: uses whole eggs and cream, just whipped and mixed. No gelatin used.
                lighter texture than Bavaroi but this is not for people who are allergic to raw eggs like Rowan.

There is a more proper way to make bavarois, but I didn't want to make extra dirty dishes nor have to deal with complicated tempering, so this is a quick & easy home dessert recipe.


This only takes up to 1 hour including the cooling time, but in the end looks like a pretty fancy dessert.
Since I don't have an oven in our apartment, a gelatin dessert was a good solution to bring to parties. I tried both agar and gelatin. The bavaroi with agar seemed to be a little firmer than the one used gelatin, but it depends what you prefer and what you have in the cupboard.

Chocolate Bavarois 

Ingredients (makes 6 small cups)

• 250 ml milk
• 250 ml whipping cream
• 2 tbs sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 100 g dark / semi-sweet chocolate (200 ml chocolate chips)
• 1 tbs gelatin (or agar)
• 1 tbs brandy
• extra 3 tbs sugar and 15 almonds (or macadamia) for garnish

Method

1. If using agar, put in the cold milk and mix well 
2. warm the milk (do not boil) in a pot over medium to low heat 
3. whisk egg yolks and sugar well in a bowl until it turns to a whitish colour
4. whip the cream until stable and still slightly soft (70% of the way to being stiff), set aside
5. slowly add warmed milk to the egg yolk/sugar mix, mix well, put back in milk pot and keep stirring over medium heat (this will be the creme anglaise)
6. when the creme anglaise has become a little thicker (about 6 minutes), turn off the heat, add gelatin, chocolate and brandy, mix well 
7. pour this mixture into the whipped cream and mix well
8. strain into individual cups (easier & cleaner if you use a measuring cup to pour) and put in fridge to cool
9. while cooling the bavaroi, make caramelised nuts for the garnish. just melt the sugar until crispy brown in a teflon pan and add almonds (or macadamia), turn off the heat and cool,  use a food processor to blend into small pieces (or use a hammer)
10. when the bavaroi is set, top with caramelised almond bits
11. bon appetit!

I only had almonds when I made this, but caramelised lightly salted macadamias goes beautifully with chocolate!