Print Recipe

Prep Time 2

Resting Time 4

Course Dessert

Servings chocolate bombs

Equipment

2.5 cm silicone dome moulds
7 cm silicone dome moulds
Sous Vide Cooker

Ingredients

Chocolate Shells

600 grams cooking chocolate

Chocolate Mousse

90 ml cream
120 grams cooking chocolate, chopped
⅛ teaspoon salt
150 ml heavy cream
3 tablespoons icing sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Cake

65 grams flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ tablespoons cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon bi-carb
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
60 grams butter, room temperature
100 grams sugar
1 egg
¼ cup hot water

Raspberry Mousse

150 grams raspberries, pureed
1 egg, room temperature
20 grams castor sugar
1 sheet gelatine, soaked in cold water for 5 minutes and squeezed of excess water
30 ml milk

Instructions

Raspberry Puree

Heat the raspberry puree in a saucepan until hot, but not boiling.
In a small bowl, whisk the egg and castor sugar until pale and light in color.
Pour the raspberries into the egg mixture and stir to incorporate.
Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk for a couple of minutes, until the mixture starts to thicken.
Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the gelatine and milk until they are incorporated. Pour the mixture into 12 x 2.5 cm silicone dome moulds and freeze until solid.

Chocolate Shells (using tempered chocolate)

Preheat your sous vide cooker to 46 °C. Seal the chocolate in a vacuum seal bag.
Place the chocolate into the water bath and let it sit until completely melted, about 5 minutes/
Set the sous vide cooker to 27 °C and add ice to the water bath until the temperature drops to 27 °C.
Set the temperature to 32 °C and let the chocolate heat up. Lift the bag out of the water every few minutes and agitate the chocolate as it warms.
Snip off a corner of the vacuum bag and use it as a piping bag to pipe approximately 1 tablespoon of chocolate into 12 x 7 cm silicone dome moulds.
Use the back of a spoon to evenly spread the chocolate across the dome mould. Place in the freezer until needed.
Reserve the remaining chocolate to use to assemble the chocolate bombs.

Chocolate Cake

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Line a 22 x 33 cm cake pan with baking paper.
Cream the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer for about 2 minutes, until light and fluffy.
Add the egg and vanilla and mix until incorporated.
Sift the flour, salt, bi-carb and cocoa powder into the mixture, and use a spatula to mix by hand until just incorporated.
Add the hot water and mix to combine.
Pour onto the prepared tray and bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool down.
Use a 6 cm circle cutter to cut 12 circles from the cake.

Chocolate Mousse

Place the cream and chocolate into a bowl over a pot of boiling water. Keep stirring until the chocolate is melted. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
Once the mixture is at room temperature, use an electric mixer to whip the heavy cream with the icing sugar and vanilla. Whip on a medium-high speed until stiff peaks form.
Pour the chocolate mixture into the whipped cream and fold through. You don't want to over-whip the mixture but you want to ensure all the cream is incorporated and there is no white streaks.
Transfer the mousse mixture to a piping bag ready to use when assembling the domes.

To Assemble

To assemble, ensure you have all elements ready to go.
Take the chocolate shells from the freezer (leave in the moulds) and add about 2 tablespoon of mousse mixture to the bottom of each of them.
Take the raspberry mousse from the freezer and remove from the moulds. Add one raspberry mousse dome to each chocolate shell.
Place one cake cake round on top of the raspberry mousse for each shell. Each shell should be filled to the top at this point.
Place the shells into the freezer and allow to set for approximately 30 minutes.
Remove from the freezer and cover with more tempered chocolate. Spread the chocolate with a spatula to create a smooth bottom to the chocolate bombs.
Leave the chocolate in the freezer for a few hours.
To serve, remove the chocolate bombs from the moulds and place onto a serving plate. Leave to rest for at least 30 minutes before serving.

These raspberry chocolate bombs are something special designed to impress. They are a little bit of work to put together but the reward is worth it in the end. Although there are quite a few steps, none of them are particularly hard, the most time consuming part is the waiting between each component.

The chocolate bombs are a tempered chocolate dome shell filled with a chocolate mousse, raspberry mousse and a thin chocolate brownie slice. The bottoms are sealed with additional chocolate and then it gets plated to create a show stopping piece/

Making the chocolate bombs

These chocolate bombs will need to be made ahead of time. The components take time to make and freeze. You will then want to demold and thaw the domes in the fridge for 24 hours before serving. My suggestion would be to start 2 days in advanced, making the raspberry mousse the day prior to making everything else.

The individual components should all be prepared before you start to assemble the chocolate bombs together. Follow the instructions below, and you can’t go wrong.

The Raspberry Mousse

To make the raspberry mousse, start by adding some raspberry puree to a saucepan. Heat until hot, but not boiling.

Note: A raspberry puree, is made simply by taking some raspberries, either fresh or frozen, and placing them into a food processor until a puree is formed.

Whisk an egg and sugar together, until pale and light, and then add the hot raspberry mixture. Place the mixture in a heat proof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Whisk until the mixture starts to thicken and holds its shape. It’s important at this step no to over-heat the mixture.

Finish the mousse by removing it from the heat and stirring in the gelatine. Transfer the mixture to a jug and pour it into 2.5 cm silicone dome molds. Place the filled molds in the freezer and leave there until the mousse is solid.

The Chocolate Shells

The chocolate shells have an amazing shine and a lovely crisp crack to them, which is achieved through tempering the chocolate. There are many ways to temper chocolate, however, I have found a sous vide cooker is the easiest way to successfully temper chocolate every time without fail.

Take the chocolate and seal it in a vacuum seal bag. Drop the chocolate into a water bath at 46 °C and allow it to sit for about 5 minutes, until melted. Lower the water bath temperature to 27 °C through the addition of ice and then let the chocolate heat to 32 °C. At this point, the chocolate is tempered and can be held in the water bath until needed.

Tip: Seal the chocolate into several smaller bags (I use 4-5 bags), allowing you to work with smaller amounts of chocolate at a time.

Snip a corner off the vacuum bag and use it like a piping bag to pipe about 1-2 tablespoons of chocolate into 7 cm silicone dome molds. The recipe should have enough to make at least 12 domes. Use a spoon to evenly spread the chocolate across the mold and then transfer the molds to the freezer to set the chocolate.

Notes for tempering the chocolate

If your molds are semi-translucent you can hold them up to light to see where the chocolate is still too thin.
Do 1-2 domes at a time, returning the remaining chocolate to the water bath while you shape the dome
Use a heat gun to work with chocolate, particularly if it becomes too stiff to work.
Avoid getting water in with the chocolate. Use a tea towel to wipe the bag down once removing it from the water bath.
The chocolate can also be tempered through other more conventional methods if you prefer, or don’t have a sous vide tool.

The Chocolate Cake

The chocolate cake makes gives a different texture element in the chocolate bombs. The mixture comes out fairly thin and has the taste similar to a soft chocolate brownie. Although the recipe doesn’t seem like it makes much cake batter, it creates sufficient for what is needed in this recipe. To make the cake, start by heating the oven to 180 °C and then line a 9 x 13 ” cake pan with baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer for about 2 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and then use a spatula to stir in the sifted dry ingredients by hand. Lastly, hot water is added, making the cake batter into a spreadable consistency. Spread the mixture into the prepared cake pan and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Remove the cake from the oven and leave it to cool in the pan. Once cooled, use a 6-6.5 cm circle cookie cutter to cut out 12 circles from the cake batter. You want to create discs of cake that are slightly smaller than the size of the domes you are using

The Chocolate Mousse

To make the chocolate mousse, you need to first make a chocolate ganache. The ganache is made by adding cream, chocolate and salt to a bowl over a double boiler, stirring until the chocolate is melted and combined with the cream.

Let the ganache cool and then add the heavy cream to an electric mixer, along with icing sugar and vanilla extract. Whip the cream until stiff peaks are formed. Fold in the ganache to the whipped cream until just incorporated and then transfer the mousse to a piping bag ready to assemble the chocolate bombs.

Filling the Chocolate Bombs

At this point you should have the chocolate shells and raspberry mousse in the freezer, the chocolate mousse in a piping bag, 12 circles of chocolate cake and the remaining tempered chocolate in the water bath ready to use as needed.

To begin completing the chocolate bomb assembly, start by piping about 2 tablespoons of chocolate mousse into each chocolate shell. They should be approximately 2/3 full

Next, remove the raspberry mousse domes from their moulds and add one into the middle of each chocolate shell.

Take a chocolate cake disc and place it on top. At this point, each shell should be filled pretty much to the top. If there are still gaps around the edge of the cake, you may need to pipe in additional mousse mixture.

Place the chocolate shells in the freezer for about 15-30 minutes, to firm up the mousse. To complete the shells, remove the molds from the freezer and spread tempered chocolate onto the top of each shell to seal them closed. Spread using a spatula to create a smooth bottom and wipe away any excess around the edges of each mold.

Transfer the moulds to the freezer, and allow to freeze overnight.

Serving the Chocolate Bombs

Remove the molds from the freezer and press out each dome while the chocolate is still frozen. Allow each chocolate bomb to sit for at least 90 minutes before serving. Alternatively, press out each chocolate bomb from it’s mold the day prior to serving and store in an air-tight container in the fridge until needed.

Serve the bombs with some raspberry curd, fresh raspberries, pistachio nuts and some crushed meringue. I also scattered a small number of freeze-dried raspberry bits among each plate for additional bursts of raspberry flavor.