The cleverest chocolate mousse ever...

A few days ago I was at an event at the excellent Wellcome Collection. You may have been there for one of their exhibitions, usually based around science or medicine (the last one, Brains, was particularly popular). Well, this event reached new heights as far as I was concerned, as it involved samples of chocolate mousse. I'm sure there's all kinds of physics and chemistry involved here, but the scientific details somewhat passed me by.

The mousse was created by Mark Greenaway, a top chef (you may have seen him on Great British Menu and the like) in Edinburgh, where he has an eponymous restaurant. His mousse was egg-free, thanks to a nifty device I haven't seen before called a cream whipper. You put your cream-based solution into a stainless steel device like a cross between a jug and a spray can, charge it with some canisters of nitrous oxide (laughing gas to you and me) and out comes an instant, light-as-gossamer mousse. (You can do this with savoury things too, eg to make salmon mousse.) The ingredients here were 70pc dark chocolate, melted with double cream and a little sugar.

Of course, Mark Greenaway didn't become a top chef by just making normal chocolate mousse, even if it is a particularly ethereal one. No, he also made caramelised Coco Pops (melt your sugar, stir in Coco Pops, allow to cool, break up into pieces). In case anyone was horrified by the use of mass-produced sugary cereal in his dessert, he explained that you could puff the rice yourself, but there didn't really seem to be much point. And the final magic touch was a layer of popping candy.

It was intensely chocolatey. It was airy. There were the caramelised Coco Pops to provide a textural contrast. And then there was the popping candy, producing tiny explosions inside your skull. Did I mention this was free? Living in London is great...

Sadly I didn't manage to photograph the chocolate mousse, but here's a picture of a cream whipper instead.