Fall Cooking Club: Pumpkin Mousse
Penn Appetit hosted its first cooking club cooking session two weeks ago in the beautiful Penn Women’s Center kitchen! Since it was just after Halloween, we picked an easy but flavorful pumpkin mousse recipe for us to create. Each member brought along a single ingredient that the recipe required, and as a group, we combined everything into a large bowl of creamy spiced pumpkin mousse! We had a wonderful mix of people come, ranging from cooking beginners to experts. Here’s what some of these girls had to say:
I joined Penn Appetit’s cooking club because I had spent a considerable amount of time at home cooking with and for my family and friends. When I began living in the quad, my only opportunities to cook seemed to be at my friends’ apartments and that was a fairly rare occasion. As soon as I walked into the kitchen of the Women’s House, I felt instantly comfortable. The warm aroma of freshly baked cookies filled the air, and I felt at home. After walking into an unknown situation, with the contents of my backpack consisting of a single book and the half of cup of sugar that I was asked to bring, I was nervous. The strange variety of ingredients slowly began to form into a colorful concoction. While the mixture was coagulating into the refrigerator, I began talking with the other members of the club, which consisted of a diverse group of interesting and friendly girls. We conversed about of studies, future plans and backgrounds. The club concluded with the small group of us savoring the taste of the pumpkin mouse we had created and carefully decorated with slivered, toasted almonds. I walked out the doors and across the porch and was greeted by an ominous sky. Despite the stormy and dear night, I felt calm and satisfied. – Jillian Kelly
The cooking club was an incredible experience and a great way to learn a new recipe. I had never made mousse before and really enjoyed learning how it was made and of course, eating it. The club was also a great way to meet new people and I learned a lot about everyone that was there. – Ali Greenstein
So basically, mousse is all cream. That’s why it tasted so good! In the cosy kitchen of Penn Women’s Center, the scent of chocolate chip cookies wafting around from a concurrent baking session, we added our own “fallsy” scent of pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg as we made pumpkin mousse. From learning the cool trick of putting salt in an ice bath to replace chilling the pumpkin mousse to toasting almonds, I had a great time meeting everyone from all walks of Penn and bonding over food. –Kai Syuen Loh
Pumpkin Mousse Recipe:
• 1 15-oz can pumpkin puree
• 1 cup plus 2 cups chilled heavy cream
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• ¾ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ cup slivered almonds
In a medium saucepan, stir together the pumpkin, 1 cup heavy cream, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Chill for at least 1 hour before preparing the mousse.
Whip the remaining 2 cups chilled cream into hard peaks. Gently stir ½ cup of the chilled pumpkin mixture into the whipped cream. Once the ½ cup of pumpkin is almost fully incorporated into the cream, fold in the remaining pumpkin. Serve chilled with slivered almonds as a garnish.
Adapted from http://frenchfood.about.com/od/desserts/r/pumpkinmousse.htm