Avocado Chocolate Mousse

The avocado chocolate mousse is often loved from vegan people or adept of the raw diet.  Most of the recipes use raw cacao powder.  This is where it gets confusing for the majority of us.  See below for definitions.

A few definitions

In English language the words cacao and cocoa refer to two different products.  Just reminding you here that in most Latin languages, the translation for “cocoa” is “cacao”!

Here are the adopted definitions (not by me, by all):

English Word	French word	Definition	Definition (francais)
Cacao	Cacao cru	Powder made from the bean of the cacao pod. The beans have not been roasted.	Cacao cru ou «non torréfié», la poudre resulte du broyage des feves de cacao (pas de fermentation, et torrefaction).
Cocoa	Cacao	Powder resulting from grinding cacao beans which have been roasted. Light brown colour. In Australia, this is the most used form of cocoa powder. In France and possibly some parts of Canada, dutch cocoa is mostly used.	Poudre de cacao naturel ayant subi les procedes de fermentation et torrefaction. De couleur brun pâle. Ce cacao est plus acide et amère que la poudre de cacao alcalinisé. Son goût est par contre plus fruité. C'est la forme principalement utilise en recettes dans les pays anglophones.
Dutch cocoa (e.g. VanHouten, Blooker, Fry's)	Cacao hollandais ou cacao alcalinise	cocoa beans that have been washed with a potassium carbonate solution, to alkalise the pH and to neutralise their acidity. The powder is dark brown in colour.	Poudre de cacao naturel qui a subi une alcalinisation. Le cacao est moins acide et sa couleur plus foncee. En France, c'est le cacao le plus utilise dans les recettes.

Got it?

Ingredients:

• 2 large ripe avocados
• 1/2 cup of maple syrup
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of raw cacao

Note:  if you prefer using a good quality chocolate, you will need close to 200 g, melted.  You will end up with a higher volume of mousse. Note that couverture chocolate will harden, better stick to the 70% Nestle supermarket version. In that case, remove the maple syrup. 

Method:

Place everything in the food processor and blend on high speed until processed and smooth.  If you think the mousse is too thick, add a little water at the time.

Place in individual ramequins and refrigerate until use.

Note: this mousse can also be used to fill raw chocolate mousse tarts