How awesome: we had a full house at Crossroads Coffee last night for our screening of Planeat, a documentary exploring plant-based nutrition and the environmental impact of our dietary choices!! Events like this make all of our efforts so worthwhile…I will never believe that people are fundamentally unwilling to change their habits when given this information. Especially while eating healthy food that tastes good! As one of the chefs from Babycakes bakery in NYC says in the documentary, rather than trying to convince people that animal-free food tastes good solely with words just get them to try it, and they say “Ohhhh!”

In that spirit, my mocha mousse recipe (no refined sugar!) that received many enthusiastic compliments is posted below: warning – it is addictive. And, if you’re more inclined to eat mousse than cook it it might be showing up on the menu at Crossroads…maybe even in a chocolate mousse pie incarnation?? Feel free to heckle owner Jeff if you’d like to see this happen!

Here’s two videos of our intro to the film and some of the Q&A following…and if you missed it or want to show your friends and family the film will be available on streaming video near the end of 2011: sign up to be notified here!

 
Mocha Mousse

More involved than most of my recipes, but so worth it!

• 1/8 cup soymilk
• 2 oz grain-sweetened dark chocolate chips (Ellwood Thompson’s def. has it; you can substitute regular dark or semi-sweet but avoiding refined sugar is preferrable)
• 1 Tbsp pure maple syrup
• 1/3 cup soymilk
• 1 1/2 Tbsp agar flakes (Asian section, Ellwood Thompson & Whole Foods definitely have it)
• 4 tsp cornstarch
• 6 oz silken tofu (look for the word silken on the package, Mori-Nu brand is good)
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1 Tbsp ground espresso
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

First we make the chocolate ganache that makes the mousse so rich. In a small saucepan, bring the 1/8 cup soymilk to a gentle boil. Remove from heat and stir in the chocolate and maple syrup with a heatproof rubber spatula until completely mixed. Set aside.

Reserve a few tablespoons of the 1/3 cup soymilk in a small bowl and add the rest to a small saucepan with the agar flakes. On medium-high heat while stirring constantly, dissolve the agar flakes as much as possible – around 3-4 minutes, it will get very thick. Add the cornstarch to the reserves soymilk and whisk with a fork, then pour into the agar-soymilk mixture. It will get super thick and pasty very quickly – remove from heat. The hardest part is now over!

Add the silken tofu, agave, espresso, vanilla, and your agar paste to a blender and blend on high until completely mixed, pausing to scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula as necessary.

Add the chocolate ganache and blend again, scraping down the sides as necessary. It will still be somewhat liquid-y at this point.

Divide into individual serving bowls – you can even get fancy and pipe it in swirls with a pastry bag and a star shaped extruder – or just put it one big bowl and place in the fridge to set. It should firm up in a few hours and be ready to serve!