Lemon Mousse

I had a wonderful afternoon in the garden this afternoon. All this rain has done wonders for my sweet peas ... it finally feels like summer is on the way!

We have friends over for dinner tonight. I am cooking duck breast and I thought I would make one of my favourite summer puddings, Lemon Mousse.

I adore it, I was taught how to make it by my mummy, it is quick easy and tastes wonderful ... I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

LEMON MOUSSE - Serves 8

Ingredients

1 x 397g Tin of Condensed Milk, 300ml Double Cream, 4 Lemons, 4 Eggs

Separate the eggs. Place the whites in one mixing bowl and the yokes in a second
Add the condensed milk, and the juice and rind from the lemons to the egg yokes. (I squeeze the lemon juice by hand, if you have an amazingly efficient machine you may only need the juice from three lemons)
Put the cream in the third bowl
Using an electric whisk, whisk the egg whites into soft peaks (pull the whisk out of the egg and if a little peak forms and stay then that is a soft peak and you are done with whisking)
Tap of as much of the egg white as you can off the whisk and then whisk the cream until it is thick. (You are looking for the same thickness of cream you spread on scones a scoop full should stay on a teaspoon if turned upside down for a few seconds)
Mix the cream into the egg yoke mixture
Once the cream is mixed in, fold in the egg whites. To start add in a large spoon full of the egg white to the egg yolk and cream mixture and fold in with a large spoon. Once this is throughly folded into then add in the rest of the egg whites. Try to do this quite quickly as if you stir the egg whites for too long they will lose the air that you have just whisked into them
Once combined line a ceramic flan dish with some cling film (my dish has a diameter of 28cm and is 3cm deep).
Pour the mixture into the flan dish and place in the freezer for a minimum of six hours
Before you guests arrive you need to remove the pudding from the flan case. Have two large plates that are 28cm in diameter to hand. Remove the pudding from the freezer and place in 1cm of hot water for ten seconds. Remove from the water and place a plate face down on top of the pudding. Carefully turn it over, remove the cling film from the pudding and place the second plate face down where the cling film used to be. Using both plates carefully turn the pudding over, remove the top plate and you should be left with your pudding looking great face up on a plate
Place the pudding back in the freezer
30 minutes before you are ready to serve remove the pudding from the freezer so that it can soften to a moussey texture.

Cooking notes

You need three mixing bowls for this recipe, if you have an electric whisk it will be a lot quicker, if not you might need some help with the whisking, my husband normally has to step in with this one.

Make sure you mix the egg whites before the cream ... if you do it the other way round then the cream in the egg whites will stop them from foaming.

If you do not have time to remove the mousse from the flan dish then pour it directly into a serving bowl. As mentioend above you will need to remove the bowl from the freezer 30 minutes before you eat the mousse, to give it time to relax.

Adapting

If you don’t have lemons you can use limes .. or two of each would work well.