Banana Mousse

This is a pretty sweet and healthful mousse, if you want to consider a mousse to be healthful. The important thing to remember when using a fruit like banana in a mousse is that you want to food process the banana's even if they are over ripe. You want the texture of the fruit to be the most puree like possible for a uniform creamy texture. A mousse is a very similar technique to the technique used for a curd (lemon-curd-fruit-curd).

Formula*: yields 1# 15 oz pulp (enough to fill one 8" cake)
8g  Gelatin
310g  Banana pulp, fresh or frozen
25g  Lemon juice
35g  Sugar
420g  Heavy cream
*This formula is adapted from Gisslen, Professional Baking, Ed. 5, pg. 543


MOP:
Add lemon juice to banana pulp to preserve colour of bananas. If you do not do this your mousse will form a unappealing brownish colour.

Whip heavy cream to a soft peak, milkshake consistency. Refrigerate to help set up.
Bloom, or soften, gelatin in cold water. Set aside until you are ready to use.

Heat one-third of the banana pulp to 140°F in a sauce pan**. When the pulp reaches temperature turn off heat and add gelatin to pulp, before use squeeze water out of sheet gelatin. Stir in gelatin until it fully dissolves. Add sugar and stir in until it dissolves.

Add the heated mixture to the remaining cooled banana pulp. You can use a white rum in this recipe as well (25g), if you have this addition you would add it now as well. Continue to stir the mixture to cool to 75°F, you can also cool it by stirring it over an ice bath. This mixture will not thicken that much.

Fold whipped cream into banana mixture. Fully incorporate and fill molds. Chill to set.


**Banana's are acidic and when you heat them up they loose some of their taste due to the acid. You can omit this stage and do a cold infusion for this recipe if you desire. If you omit this step you will still need to heat up the gelatin before adding it to the mousse.