Recipes

White chocolate mousses with strawberry and black pepper sauce

Adding just a hint of cracked black pepper to pureed strawberries adds a real kick, combine with the white chocolate, lime and white rum mousse and you will wow your friends.  Make extra sauce and freeze in sections of an ice cube tray, defrost as many ice cubes as you need in the microwave and drizzle over a scoop of vanilla ice cream to give it the star treatment.

Serves 4

Prep: 30 minutes
Cook: 5 minutes
Chill: 3-4 hours

White chocolate mousse

200g (7oz) white chocolate, broken into pieces

1 lime, grated rind only

2 eggs, separated

2 tablespoons white rum

150ml (1/4 pint) double cream

Strawberry and black pepper sauce

50g (2oz) caster sugar

75ml (21/2 fl oz) water

1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, roughly crushed

225g (8oz) strawberries, hulled, sliced

½ lime, juice only

Few extra small strawberries to decorate

1         To make the mousse, melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a saucepan of very gently simmering water, making sure that the base of the bowl isn’t touching the water.

2         Take the bowl of chocolate off the saucepan and stir in the lime rind, egg yolks and rum until smooth. Lightly whip the cream until it forms soft swirls then fold into the chocolate mix and spoon into 4 small glasses. Chill in the fridge for 3-4 hours until set.

3         Meanwhile make the sauce, add the sugar, water and pepper to a medium saucepan and heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved then simmer for 3 minutes. Add the strawberries and lime juice and cook for 2 minutes then leave to cool.

Puree the sauce in a liquidiser or using a stick blender until smooth. Pour into a small jug and pour over the tops of the mousses just before serving. Serve on small plates with extra halved strawberries, if liked.