Chocolate Mousse Recipe Best for Easy Entertaining: Made in a Blender [Video]
This might be the best chocolate mousse recipe for busy hosts. Made entirely in a blender with coconut cream and quality dark chocolate, this vegan mousse is elegant, easy, and absolutely delicious. No fancy technique required.
This chocolate mousse recipe is easy and conjurs up the patina of a generational cafe with minimal effort — no double boiler, no separated eggs, no fussy folding technique required. Made entirely in a blender with rich coconut cream and high-quality dark chocolate, this vegan mousse comes together in under 10 minutes of active prep time.
The secret? Hot espresso (you can use decaf if you prefer) and amaretto melt the chocolate while the blender runs, creating a silky-smooth base that whips into an airy, decadent dessert. This blender mousse recipe proves that the best chocolate mousse recipes don’t have to be complicated. Topped with fresh berries and a dollop of whipped coconut cream, it’s an elegant finale that tastes like you spent hours in the kitchen — when really, your blender did all the work.
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Blender Chocolate Mousse Recipe Ingredient Spotlight
Dark Chocolate and Coconut Cream are the Foundation of this Chocolate Mousse Recipe
I grew up on chocolate mousse. I remember standing on a high chair in my mother’s kitchen, watching her make it and waiting (impatiently!) to lick the bowl. I loved the light, fluffy texture and rich, complex flavors – that is… complex to a kid, especially with my mom’s secret ingredient: a touch of rum!
Flash forward to today: I’m married to a fellow chocolate lover, who’s admittedly a bit of a cocoa snob. He loves the really dark stuff; no milk chocolate or anything cheap or waxy. But he also has a sensitivity to dairy, and chocolate mousse is typically made with heavy whipping cream.
Dark chocolate (especially varieties with 70% cacao or higher) contains flavonoids, powerful antioxidants that support heart health and may help reduce inflammation.1
I recommend using a high quality chocolate like Guittard or Ghirardelli. The higher the cacao percentage, the more beneficial compounds you get — and the more intense, complex flavor your mousse will have. Choose chocolate that’s around 70 percent cacao (aka bittersweet).
Coconut cream provides the luscious, whipped texture traditionally achieved with heavy dairy cream, but with medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) that are metabolized differently than other fats.2 It whips beautifully when chilled and delivers that silky mouthfeel without any dairy. (If you want to learn more about coconut cream read What’s the Difference Between Coconut Cream and Coconut Milk?).
Maple Syrup is Used to Sweeten This Vegan Chocolate Mousse
Because I don’t like anything super sweet, I don’t add any sugar or sugar alternatives like stevia, which can taste too sweet, to this recipe. Instead, I use maple syrup, and the amaretto adds a touch of sweetness too. If you want things even sweeter, I recommend adding sifted powdered sugar to the whipped coconut cream.
Maple syrup contains minerals like manganese and zinc, along with antioxidants that aren’t found in refined sugar.3 While it’s still a sweetener, it offers a more complex flavor profile and trace nutrients that white sugar simply can’t match. The subtle caramel notes complement the bitter edge of dark chocolate beautifully.
I love serving them up in sweet ceramic ramekins (see my full guide to non-toxic bakeware for my top rated and reviewed picks).
Here’s How to Serve this Blender Chocolate Mousse
You can make it ahead of time and pull it out of the fridge 30 minutes before you’re ready to serve — and still retain that fancy appeal!
Apart from being super easy to throw together, a big selling point to this recipe is that it’s rich and delicious and your friends will be très impressed. Planning a fancy schmancy date night or dinner party? Here’s a menu idea: Honey dijon baked salmon served alongside roasted fingerling potatoes, this persimmon and pomegranate quinoa salad with salty nuggets of feta, and a champagne cocktail with winter citrus. All deceptively simple to make but stunning to serve.
Going for more of a sweets and sips spread? Add a couple more of OA’s simple and popular recipes, 4-ingredient peppermint bark, or this 5-ingredient chocolate truffles, and earn your host with the most sash. Serve up some warming reishi hot cocoa or a bourbon spiked hot toddies, or some bubbly kombucha spritzers .
Easy Chocolate Mousse Ingredients
Chocolate Mousse
Preparation
- Begin by carefully removing the chilled coconut cream from the fridge and turning the cans right-side up without shaking. Open them and scoop out the cream, placing it into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (you can also use a hand mixer for this, if you prefer). Reserve the coconut water for thinning or another use (like a smoothie).
- Beat the coconut cream until soft peaks form (this happens quickly),and chill until ready to use.
- Combine the coffee, amaretto, maple syrup and vanilla extract in a small pot, and bring it up to a boil. Immediately turn off the heat.
- In a high speed blender (like a Vitamix), combine the finely chopped chocolate and room temperature eggs. Start blending on medium low, then increase the speed to to break up the chocolate and create heat for melting.
- With the blender running on medium high, gently stream in the coffee, amaretto, vanilla mixture, then crank up the speed to high. Add a couple of pinches of salt, and scrape down the sides of the blender as needed so there are no clumps of chocolate. Blend until completely smooth.
- Add the ground espresso beans, and pulse a few times until just combined (don’t over blend, otherwise you’ll lose the lovely texture they provide).
- Remove the whipped coconut cream from the refrigerator. Reserve a half-cup for garnish, and add the remainder to the blender. Blend on medium-low speed until combined and all white streaks have disappeared (be careful not to over blend, however, lest you turn it to coconut butter!)
- Transfer the mousse into serving bowls, ramekins or mason jars, and chill for at least two hours to completely chill and set.
- Remove chocolate mousse from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before serving. Garnish with chocolate shavings, fresh berries, herbs, and a spoonful of the reserved whipped coconut cream.
Sources:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4696435/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5044790/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4684133/
