No-Cook (Vegan) Chocolate Mousse

How do you mend a broken heart? Some people recommend chocolate.

All of Israel mourns the loss of twelve innocent Druze children killed by an Iranian missile while playing soccer on a playground on a sunny Saturday afternoon, with some forty more in serious to critical condition. Hezbollah has been targeting civilians in the north of Israel for the last nine months so something like this was both inevitable and shocking at once.

Last week I promised that I would share one of my favorite, easy chocolate desserts – one that does not heat up your kitchen with cooking or baking – so perfect for these dog days of summer. And perhaps we all need a little sweetness in our lives to counter the bitterness in our souls after more than nine months of war, with attacks coming from all sides, and particularly after the sadness of Saturday’s attack on a playground full of happy families with no idea of how the day would end.

So I am writing with a heavy heart to share perhaps the easiest and healthiest chocolate mousse recipe ever, one that has been in my ragged recipe binder for so long I don’t remember how it got there. Unbelievably, the link at the bottom of the printed page of the original recipe still works! If you are curious you can find it here shared by a woman who goes by the name Cobalt online. Thank you Cobalt! Over the years I have changed the recipe and offer this version now as a balm for the broken-hearted.

This is a great summer dessert – apart from melting the chocolate chips there is no cooking or baking. It is vegan, gluten free and dairy free (parve) – it checks a lot of boxes and it requires just a handful of ingredients that you already likely have on hand. If Silken Tofu is new to you, you can find it in most markets. (I like to keep it on hand for vegan sour cream.)

One caveat: because there are so few ingredients, the quality of the chocolate and vanilla is critical to the success of the recipe.

Ingredients

250 grams / 9 ounces high quality chocolate chips (1 bag locally here in Israel)

1 T vanilla

4 T Maple Syrup

300 / 10.6 ounces grams silken tofu (1 box pretty universally)

Instructions

1. Melt chocolate chips on low power in the microwave – I use 3 or 4 power and check after 2 minutes, stirring the chips to mix the melted part with the still intact chips, before melting them for another minute and checking again. Also as mentioned above, if you don’t have a microwave, you can melt the chocolate chips over low heat on the stove-top (keep an eye on it, stirring with a wooden spoon).
2. Once the chips are melted, stir in Vanilla and Maple Syrup.
3. Blend in the tofu – I find a hand-blender really handy for this, though you can also use a whisk or blender.
4. Refrigerate 1 -2 hours until the Chocolate Mousse is thoroughly chilled.
   
   My husband Matt loves this with granola.