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White chocolate and passion fruit mousse

Nigella Lawson from Forever Summer with Nigella
Nigella Lawson gives you flavour, intensity, sweetness and light with this well balanced dessert

White chocolate and passion fruit mousse

Method

1. Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in the microwave for about 3 minutes, or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water then set the bowl aside, and let the chocolate cool a little.

2. Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Mix the egg yolks into the cooled chocolate, though be gentle to ensure it doesn't seize.

3. Cut the passion fruit in half and scoop the juice, pulp and seeds into the yolk and chocolate mixture, then fold into the egg whites until completely incorporated.

4. Line the bottom of either a big glass bowl or 8-10 small glasses with a layer of raspberries - it's hard to be specific: it depends on the diameter of the glasses, or bowl, at the base really - and pour over the mousse. Leave for a couple of hours to set in the fridge, or for at least 4 if you're using one large bowl. Strangely, given that I lean normally towards the communal rather than individual serving, I generally go the one-glass-one-person route. I think it's because this is intense enough to require - even for me - small portions, and it's impossible to dollop out as little as would fill a small glass without seeming mean.

Cook's notes: So much in cooking, as in the rest of life I suppose, is about contrast, about balance. Here the acerbic fragrance of the passion fruit undercuts the otherwise over-egged richness of the white chocolate: this gives you flavour, intensity, sweetness and light.

On standing, the clear, sour-sweet juices of the fruit collect under the mousse: place raspberries in the glass first (again contrast, this time of colour, too) and let them become plumply infused and almost headily soused beneath.