Milk Chocolate mousse over Lemon Verbena infused Jelly

First of May today!

And among the wishes for the new month I gave and I got, a good friend of mine said something funny: Be careful Yanni, he said, do not eat any flowers today because it is their special day :-)

He was right I guess and so I did not publish the recipe for this dessert today but on the 2nd of May, even though I had the dessert on the 1st.

It is a very interesting recipe as it contains one of my favorite plants, lemon verbena. I really love the aroma of it, I have made many recipes using it and I even made a ASMR video last year about it.

It is now starting to produce it's first leaves so I decided to make a dessert using them.

I flavored the Jelly with it as well as the cream for the mousse.

Light textures, I serve it in small wine glasses. I advise you to dip the spoon to the bottom so that you will take some jelly as well as some mousse in the same spoonful to feel the difference in texture between them.

I serve it with Greek yogurt.. Actually sheep yogurt, that it is a lot more tart than the usual greek style yogurt you are accustomed to. I find that its acidity cuts through the sweetness of the chocolate and goes well with the lemon juice in the jelly.

A recipe for grown ups but I feel that kids will like it as well.

Let's see what we will need:

Diffuculty: 2 of 3

Duration:half an hour prep and a few minutes cooking

Serves:4

Ingredients

For the jelly

120g of water

50g of sugar

1g fresh lemon Verbena leaves finely cut

1 tblsp of water

1 tsp of gelatin

a bit of lemon juice

For the mousse

100g of full fat milk

100g of 35% fat cream

2g of Lemon Verbena leaves

1 egg yolk

170g of milk chocolate chopped finely

150g of 35% cream lightly beat up

Yogurt for serving

Method

For the Jelly

Place the water, sugar and leaves in a small pan and bring to a boil.

Simmer till sugar melts and remove from heat.

Meanwhile mix the 1 tblsp of water with the gelatine in a small bowl, leave it to bloom for 5 minutes and melt it in the microwave.

Add it to the water mixture, stir and add the lemon juice. Stir that as well and devide in 4 small wine glasses.

Put the glasses in the fridge and mix from time to time so that the leaves are not in the bottom of the jelly.

For the mousse

Place milk and cream in a small pot together with the leaves and heat the mixture up but not let it boil.

Let it cool down, add the egg yolk and bring back to the stove.

Heat gently, while stirring till the mixture thickens a bit and gets to 85 degrees Celsius.

Remove from heat and strain the mixture through a sieve in a bowl where you have placed the chocolate.

Leave for a few moments and mix well.

Let it cool down to 35 Celsius before we add the lightly whipped cream in 2-3 additions. Do not overmix.

Divide in the 4 glasses and leave to cool for 4-5 hours before serving.

Serve with some yogurt.