This week my son turned 16!
His birthday falls at the end of the Easter two week school holidays.
On the first day of the school holidays he went to Chinatown in Sydney with his friends and had a great day at the markets and eating dumplings. The next day he started to feel unwell and a week later we found out he had salmonella poisoning. Luckily it wasn’t severe enough to send him to the hospital but it knocked him around for the entire 2 week school holiday break. He lost a few kilos that he really couldn’t afford to lose so I was excited to get him eating again!
He loves chocolate and I had planned to make this week’s Cook the Book Fridays recipe, the salted butter caramel-chocolate mousse for his birthday celebrations with the family. I left My Paris Kitchen open on the recipe page on the kitchen bench and everyone who walked past and saw the photo was excited! It looks amazing. The problem was that I realised the recipe required raw eggs. Normally I wouldn’t give this a second thought. However, after our salmonella experience I decided (reluctantly) that I just couldn’t take the risk. I broke the news to the family that I would not be making the mousse and my daughter thanked her brother for getting himself sick and “ruining everything”. (I don’t have siblings, I am an only child so I need my husband who is one of 4 boys to reassure me that this is normal!)
I decided to compromise (and I hope the group doesn’t mind) by finding a recipe from David Lebovitz for something similar. I couldn’t go past the Double Chocolate Pudding on his website!
In the past week I have made a double batch of the recipe 3 times. It was surprisingly silky and smooth but not overly sweet. The problem with this was that you could just keep eating it! The third time I made it first thing in the morning and took the photos before everyone came home from school, uni and work. It really was that good! It was also very quick and easy to make. So much reward for such little effort! I know I’ll be making it again… and again… and again 🙂
I know down the track I will make the salted caramel mousse, but for now I can’t say enough good things about David’s Chocolate Pudding!
I can’t wait to see how everyone went with this week’s Cook the Book Fridays group recipe!
Kitchen Therapy 
May 6, 2016 at 12:20 pm
Good choice to forego the raw eggs this week. Until Katie brought it up last week when she was making something for a school event, I never even thought about it. All I need is to poison these kids at The Gant and I will be kicked out of here. I have a feeling that the mousse and the chocolate pudding are similar. The mousse was really, really, really rich and I could only eat a few spoonfuls per sitting (although those sittings were for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner.) What a good-looking young man. And, yes it’s normal. Everything your kids do is normal.
May 6, 2016 at 12:35 pm
The pudding was a wise choice. I love the sound of it, especially with the cocoa nib brittle. Happy Birthday to your son! I love the montage of photos – it’s amazing how kids suddenly turn into young adults, isn’t it?
May 6, 2016 at 8:14 pm
So sorry to hear your son was sick for his entire holiday. What a bummer! Food poisoning is not fun. Glad you found an alternate, and hope you get to this at some point. If the pudding is half as delicious as the mousse, then I greatly look forward to it!
May 6, 2016 at 11:25 pm
I found the pudding on his website not the book. It’s a shame we won’t be working through it because it really was great x
May 7, 2016 at 12:18 am
I will have to find this. I love pudding!
May 6, 2016 at 8:17 pm
I applaud your choice and choose to ignore the “raw egg” factor when I make mousse 😉
May 7, 2016 at 1:37 am
Too bad your son got sick around his birthday and won’t be able to enjoy a spectacular chocolate mousse. You did the right thing for not taking the risk with raw eggs, especially with your son’s compromised conditions. I know how it feels since i have been having violent reactions to certain food. I made a molten chocolate cake a while back and it’s right up there in taste with the mousse.
May 7, 2016 at 3:51 am
Love your alternative choice, you were very wise!
May 7, 2016 at 7:12 am
Good alternative!! Happy birthday to your son. He is lovely! 👍
May 7, 2016 at 10:52 am
Happy Birthday to your son. I think you made the right call after him having food poisoning. On the upside, now we all know of another delicious to try. I hope you get to make the mousse sometime, because it was awesome.
May 7, 2016 at 10:27 pm
Happy Birthday to your son!! If the pudding is 1/2 as good as the mousse, I cannot wait to try it- your pudding looks lovely and worthy of a party celebration.
May 9, 2016 at 10:32 pm
Wow, a big happy birthday to your son and that’s awful about the salmonella! I was considering making this for a dessert fundraiser for my daughter’s preschool and decided the raw eggs would not be a good idea–I imagined a bunch of people getting salmonella from my dessert and how horrified I’d be that a bunch of 3- and 4-year-olds were so ill. Phew! What a great compromise, though!! Looks beautiful, too.
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May 12, 2016 at 11:48 am
They sell pasteurized egg in the shell. You could ask your grocery the next time you shop. I hope your son is feeling better. I love the cute photos.
May 18, 2016 at 9:32 am
I can understand your hesitation making a recipe with raw eggs so soon after the salmonella experience. I am happy your son is feeling better, and happy to know David’s chocolate pudding recipe is so good. My husband LOVES pudding, so I will be sure to make it for him.