The Lost Symbol and Chocolate Mousse Pyramid

Is that a pyramid made out of chocolate mousse you ask?  Why yes it is!  Is that gold paint on the top of it? Yes!  Why in the world would you complicate something as simply delicious as chocolate mousse by fussing it into a mold and painting it?  The answer is Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code follow up, The Lost Symbol.  And as anyone who has read his books can attest to, Dan Brown is good at complicating things.   The Lost Symbol takes place is Washington DC and the focus of the book is the mysteries of the Masons and specifically a super secret super special pyramid, whose top is gold.  While I was dragging through The Great World Spins a few weeks ago (Genuine NYC pretzels and a review coming soon), I decided I needed something lighter for a few days - The Lost Symbol was exactly what I needed. I read it in a couple of days and was refreshed and ready to re-tackle and finish up the more serious book.  And, it gave me a reason to make chocolate mousse...

Yes, Dan Brown's books are formulaic (Professor Robert Langdon finds himself in a crisis when he gets in over his head on some project or favor for a friend, a beautiful and highly intelligent woman is somehow involved in this crisis, the villain is some weirdly hair styled or otherwise kinky/strange very large man, some character is not who they appear to be,  there is some small object that is the key to it all that only Langdon can figure out, and in the end, some scandalous secret is revealed that changes the way we think about some very fundamental thing in the world), but they can also be fun, interesting reads.  Unfortunately, I did not find the Lost Symbol either that much fun or that interesting.  The Lost Symbol follows the exact formula outlined in my parenthetical.  Langdon is called to DC by his good friend Peter Solomon who is a part of a rich political dynasty, the head of the Smithsonian Institution and a very high ranking figure in the Masons.  His friend ends up kidnapped, with his hand missing, and Langdon must save him.  The villain is a hulking freaky man who is covered all over with body tattoos.  I don't know why Brown chose a villain so similar to that albino guy in The Da Vinci Code.  Langdon's love interest is Katherine Solomon, his friend's sister and a brilliant noetic scientist.  I think I didn't enjoy this book because (a) it was just too predictable and (b) I just wasn't that interested or intrigued by the Masons.  The secrets behind the Vatican and the story of Christianity were so much more compelling than the Masons - which is a secretive society that some very important figures in American history were members of.   And the setting of the book - DC - also was not as interesting as the Rome or Paris of Brown's previous novels.  In the end, this book felt like a  half hearted effort. The book  kept my interest for the day or so that I read it, but I forgot about it the minute I finished the last page.

 

Chocolate Mousse

Adapted from Epicurious

(Printable Recipe) 

Ingredients

2 cups chilled heavy cream

4 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
7 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped 

1. Heat 3/4 cup cream in a saucepan until hot. 
2. Whisk together yolks, sugar, and a pinch of salt in a metal bowl until combined well, then add hot cream in a slow stream, whisking until combined.   Remember to do this slowly or you will have scrambled eggs.
3. Put this egg mixture back in the saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until it registers 160°F on thermometer. 
4. Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl to remove any bits of cooked egg and stir in vanilla.
5. Melt chocolate in a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or in a glass bowl in a microwave at 50 percent power 3 to 5 minutes), stirring frequently. 
6. Whisk custard into chocolate until smooth, then cool.
7. Beat the remaining heavy cream in bowl of electric mixture until it just holds stiff peaks.
8. Fold in a little bit of the cream mixture into the chocolate mixture, then gently fold in the rest.
9. Now, if you just want regular chocolate mouse, spoon it into ramekins, bowls, glasses, whatever your pleasure, and refrigerate a few hours.
10. If you want to mold it, get a metal mold, spray it with Pam.  Spoon the mixture in and put the mold in freezer at least 4 hours.  To unmold, dip the mold in hot water, and tap out onto a plate.