Homemade Heaven

Illawarra Mercury

Wednesday March 19, 2008

KILMENY ADIE

With the help of a family recipe, a Bowral business is whipping up some great chocolate mousse, writes KILMENY ADIE.

Stephane Bourrigaud dips his hand into a large cardboard box and pulls out a handful of chocolate buttons similar to those used in home baking.

Try this, he says, handing over a dollar-coin sized chocolate.

As it melts on the tongue, it's clear that appearance is the only comparison between this and the common commercial product.

Bourrigaud is one half of a successful husband-and-wife team of mousse makers who have turned an old family recipe into a successful business venture.

The The Belgian Chocolate Mousse Company uses the recipe and method passed down through the family of Bourrigaud's Belgian wife Laurence.

It's a recipe that has helped the business flourish in the past 10 years.

"It's a family recipe. Laurence came from Belgium and that has been in her family for hundreds of years, I guess," French-born Bourrigaud says.

"The way it came to us was when we had a dinner party everyone would be taking a doggie bag (of mousse) home.

"We said 'lets go commercial' and within one week I was able to get the ABN and the labelling to get started."

The pair's first customer was Bourrigaud's employer at a pizzeria in the Sydney suburb of Kirribilli.

Bourrigaud - who met Laurence at Balmoral Beach when she was travelling in Australia and working as an au pair - had earlier left his position in a bank to work as a pizza delivery driver.

Bourrigaud explains that when he took orders he was always sure to ask customers if they wanted dessert and regularly recommended the mousse.

From these humble beginnings The Belgian Chocolate Mousse Company has moved to Bowral and increased the number of businesses selling the product.

Returning to the ingredients, Bourrigaud is running through a shopping list that includes free-range eggs, fresh cream and - of course - the couverture chocolate.

He cheerfully sidesteps questions of the chocolate's origins by saying he believes this ingredient is one of the reasons for the success the small business.

"The chocolate is classified," Bourrigaud says with a laugh.

"But it's 58 per cent cocoa if not 63 per cent.

"Where we are winners and our customers are winners is that chocolate lasts for about 15-18 months before it starts losing its flavour.

"The chocolate we have is made about three weeks ago."

It is a Wednesday and the Bourrigauds, Stephane's brother and their two assistants - both backpackers - are making vast batches of mousse in the family's large kitchen.

The couple live in an area of Bowral zoned for commercial use and it's the family kitchen that serves as the mousse-making base.

At the rear of the property is a large shed they are in the process of developing as their commercial kitchen.

The family kitchen is a hive of activity as eggs are cracked and the yolks and whites separated, cream carefully measured and whipped and the chocolate gently melted.

On the bench, containers are being filled with mousse, weighed and labelled.

Laurence quietly oversees all aspects the operation and calls upon Stephane's assistance when it is time to pour the melted chocolate into the stainless steel mixing bowl.

"I know people who have been eating our mousse over the last 10 years. The quality never drops," Bourrigaud says.

"If anything, we've refined our process to make it nicer.

"Basically the reason why the mousse is fluffy is because of the chemical reaction that happens between the ingredients we use and the way we fold it together.

"For me, mousse has to be fluffy and it has to be light."

As Easter draws near, Bourrigaud says they're not expecting an increased demand for their chocolate mousse.

This is just as well since they've reached a point where expansion at this point is a little difficult.

"It's so labour intensive that we have come to a ceiling where we can't really make much more than now," he says.

"We're trying also to have a separate parallel line of chocolate so we can sell the good-quality chocolate that we're blessed to get in such big amounts."

The launch of The Belgian Mousse Company's own chocolates is expected in the near future.

The Belgian Mousse Company product is available through all Harris Farms stores, as well as high-end delis in both Sydney and Canberra and Relish Sydney.

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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