-Dave, I heard that your sister loves chocolate mousse.
-Yes. Her downfall is chocolate.
She said that when I was like 7, and I've not forgotten.
-You're going to make chocolate mousse.
-Hi. I'm Dave.
-And I'm Mary Beth.
-I'm just a guy who shoots video for "The Washington Post"
and brave enough to take on any role.
But the one thing that scares me -- cooking.
-And I'm the food host of "The Washington Post,"
which means I get paid to cook.
And now I get to do my dream job with a friend.
It's time to teach Dave to cook.
When you're making chocolate mousse,
it's a really good thing to have a trusted recipe.
So I went into the "Washington Post" recipe database,
found a recipe for chocolate mousse from 2007.
So, here we go. -Okay.
-So, how do you figure out what 8 ounces is
if you don't have a kitchen scale?
-So, I imagine we can probably measure them out into thirds.
-Perfect.
Let's do it. -Great.
-I brought three plates out. -Cool.
-So, take this bag and measure it out into thirds.
And you don't want to use chocolate chips
if you can avoid it
because chocolate chips don't melt as well.
-I've never understood that.
-A lot of them have stabilizers in them that make them not melt.
These are made specifically for baking, for melting,
so they don't have those kinds of stabilizers.
-So, do you want to test it? -Yes.
Let's see. -Okay.
All right.
So, we are looking for 8 ounces of chocolate.
Go ahead, my friend. Plate number one.
-Ooh. Close.
That's -- Whoa, yeah. -What?
Okay, now we're gonna do the second bunch.
Zelda's very interested, too.
-Oh! -Oh!
-Yes!
-I have a bottle of champagne. -The answer is "yes."
-Even Zelda thinks this is a moment.
-This is the moment. -Let me go get it.
I mean, this is -- -He thinks it.
She thinks it. -Yeah.
No. If the dog thinks it, we can --
Here it is. -Take that, Martha Stewart.
-I should have expensed the real champagne.
You don't get any, Zelda.
Watch out. Here it goes.
-Whoa! -Yay!
Good dog!
There you go, my friend.
-To learning about wafers.
-So, I have these crazy heavy pans.
-Mm-hmm. -Which I love.
-Wow. That is heavier than I thought.
-I could melt the chocolate right in this
because it has such a thick core,
it has such a heavy bottom.
However, I'm going to melt the chocolate
in what we call a double boiler
because the chocolate needs a very light,
indirect heat to melt but not burn.
So, what you do is you put about --
I don't know -- two inches of water into the pot.
And you bring it to a boil.
So, we're gonna put this right on top of the water.
And now I'm using a heat-proof bowl.
Obviously, you need two so that it doesn't crack open.
And then you just want to keep stirring the chocolate.
And of course if you wanted to,
you could just sit and eat this and watch Netflix.
-That's my plan tonight.
-So, then you turn off the stove,
and then you take this and put it aside to cool a little.
Generally, bacteria doesn't grow as well in egg whites,
but there is one way that you can test
the freshness of your egg. Do you know it?
-Put it in some water. -Yes.
And what happens if it sinks?
-Good. -Yes.
-I knew it. It sank!
-This is a day of wins -It is. -Let's do another one.
Now, if it floats, don't use it. Throw it away.
So, now what we want to do is separate the eggs
because we only want the whites.
We don't want the yolks.
If there's any yolk in a white, it won't whip as well.
Do you know how to separate an egg?
-I put one over there. I put one over there.
-Even the dog doesn't like that joke.
The dog was like, "Wah-wah."
I'm gonna show you two ways to separate an egg.
One is a very simple technique of just using the egg as a cup.
We just go back and forth.
The other way, which is actually the way that I do it,
which looks a little bad-ass --
-Ooh. -Yeah.
And then you just toss it between your hands.
-Oh, that's so fun. -Oh, my gosh!
Look at you!
You're an old Italian grandmother.
-Yep. That's me.
-Now we have four beautiful, clean egg whites.
-We did it. -We did it.
-Great. Should I drink these now?
-What did you say? -Should I drink these now?
-Sure. I'll tell you what.
There's 10 bucks in it for you if you do.
-10 bucks if I drink these? -Yeah, absolutely.
-Okay. -I mean, it's not gonna cover
your hospital bills, but --
-My God. -That's pretty good.
-Let me go get my wallet.
-And that's how you make 10 bucks.
-All right.
I only have a $20. -That's fine.
-I'll Venmo you, or I'll just -- Just --
-I'll Venmo you $10 back, the truly millennial way.
-Okay, so, now we're done with the egg whites.
-Okay. -So, I'm gonna transfer them
to this big bowl because I like working
with really big bowls when I do stuff like this.
-Okay. -I like big bowls.
-And I cannot lie.
-And then we're gonna put in 1/8 teaspoon of salt.
Measure it over the sink. Perfect.
So, it says to beat this until soft peaks form.
-Okay. -If you read that in a recipe,
would you know what that meant?
-No. -Okay, so, let's do it.
Go ahead and start beating that. There you go.
-Three? -And then --
Sure, shoot for turbo?
-Turbo? -Go around the circumference.
-North, diameter, radius. -So, it's already doing it.
Now we're at the soft-peak stage, and this is how you know.
Put your beater in.
-Mm-hmm. -And then take it out.
See how there are soft peaks?
They're not, like, standing straight up.
So, now it tells us to put in four tablespoons of sugar,
one tablespoon at a time, meaning just slowly,
and then beat it until it a satiny meringue.
-Sure. -Okay.
Right.
Exactly. So, start beating it.
-Okay. -So, this,
as you can see is a meringue peak.
It stands straight up, and you can actually bake this
to make a really delicious meringue desert.
This recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream.
Want to pour it into that bowl.
-All right. -You know what?
I'm gonna turn my back,
and you can whip it to the soft-peak stage.
Oh, my gosh, we have a chocolate spoon that needs to be licked.
-That's what I'm really here.
Much better than egg yolks.
-I still can't believe you did that.
That's the next show, is "What Will Dave Do for 10 Bucks?"
So, now what you want to do is pour in about
1/3 of this cream into the chocolate.
You want to fold the cream and the chocolate together.
You want the cream to hold its volume.
You want it to hold that lightness.
-My cards are on the table.
You win this time, Mary Beth.
-Oh, my God. -I got more jokes.
-I know you do.
That's why I'm having some champagne.
-I'm all-in on jokes. Folding.
-So, now you're going to fold.
-Okay. -The meringue.
-Mm-hmm. -Into the chocolate.
-I'm folding. -Perfect.
You did a great job.
So, I have these ramekins. -Okay.
-Do these look good to you? -Rame-great.
-How much do you think your sister will eat?
-Oh, man. The full ramekin.
What do you say when you run out of ramekins?
-What? -"I rame-can't."
-So, you want to make sure to just, like, even them out.
-Okay. -A little bit.
Ideally, you'd let them sit for a couple of hours
before you serve them, so let's put them in the fridge.
If you just served that chocolate mousse,
what would your sister do?
-She would go into a chocolate coma.
-What if you put a liqueur whipped cream on top?
-She would go into the coma before she even ate it.
-This is going to take us like five minutes,
and people are going to be like, "Oh, my gosh, Dave,
how did you do that?" One cup of cream.
And then we're going to put in 2 tablespoons of Cointreau.
-I saw that TV show on CBS. -Cointreau is something
that's used as a mixer in a lot of cocktails.
It's an orange-flavored liqueur, so it adds a nice citrus flavor.
And 2 tablespoons of Cointreau. -Okay.
-And now you beat it.
When you say it should look like whipped cream,
it should be whatever you like the consistency
of whipped cream.
-How about here? -Okay.
-It's delicious. -Ahh.
-That's wacky. -The Cointreau is delicious.
For all of history, people have been learning off of each other,
and nobody ever made the same recipe twice.
-It's like the fantasy fiction of cooking.
When you just add to it, you add your own story.
-Oh, my gosh, I love that.
I'm totally going to use that, and I will credit you.
-Good. -So, we'll do like
a little dollop on top of each.
The other thing you can do is shave some chocolate on top.
-Yes, you can. -This is, like,
15 bucks, and I love it. -Yeah.
-You absolutely don't need to have this,
but it grates cheese. My kid loves it.
And it also grates chocolate.
-It looks like it's for Play-Doh.
-Here.
Here is some of the chocolate we actually used for the mousse.
-Oh, my God. -Right?
-That is extremely satisfying.
Those wafers are really coming in handy.
-Raspberries! -Yes.
-Okay. -Correct.
-And this is also great, too,
'cause raspberries have some acidity to them.
So it's gonna cut through all of the richness that we have here.
Dave, what did you learn today?
-I learned about all different types of peaks,
also just a larger range of confidence.
-I will also say that almost everything
we've done you can made ahead. -Right.
-So, all of this you can do for yourself
so you can actually spend time with the people you have over.
I feel really good and really confident about you
being able to go out into the world and do this.
-Me too. -And be with people around food.
That's what food is supposed to be.
-I'm good at that. -Okay.
Moment of truth.
Mm-hmm. -Mm-hmm.
Oh, man, that mousse is better than I thought it would be.
-Dave. -Is that it?
-You learned how to cook. Oh, my gosh, it's over.
-No. -But you know what?
Here. -Oh, okay.
-I have your perfect wafer measuring -- -I'm empty.
-So, if you're over at someone's house, don't do that.
-Chug the rest? -Yes.
-Really? -I'm just trying to, you know --
Dave. -Mm-hmm?
To you learning how to
cook.