Triple Chocolate Mousse

I'm going to start by saying I don't often make sweets....  I love them, but face it- I don't need them and neither does anyone else in this house.  But here something I have made recently.....  for a clients' dinner party.

Triple Chocolate Mousse- this simple french dessert was something that a client asked me to make for a plated dinner party so I immediately thought I had to do one better then straight chocolate- So I made 3 different chocolate mousses and served them in a martini glass!  (FYI anything served in a martini glass is elevating it to super stardom status in your guests eyes)  I have made chocolate mousse maybe once ever and to be honest I couldn't even remember how to make it so I started looking around online to see what my options were.  I wanted something stable that could hold up through the dinner and be really yummy so I went with making a custard base and separating it into 3 bowls and adding 3 different chocolates: white, milk and dark.  A custard is so simple really and very versatile so I would suggest everyone know how to make it- you can then take you base and make it sweet OR savory- as in the case of roasted vegetable bread pudding (yum) with a roasted garlic custard.  Ok, I digress so back to the chocolate mousse recipe.

A proper custard recipe:

Cream or Whole Milk steeped with Flavoring  (Vanilla bean in this case)
Egg Yolks whisked with sugar- you want the eggs to be light yellow and billowy
pinch of salt

the tricky part of technique here is combining hot milk with eggs..... so you temper it by starting with a ladle of hot milk and rapidly whisking it into the eggs.  You want to bring the temp of the eggs up closer to the cream so you don't shock them and make some sweet scrambled eggs.... literally.  Once you get a few ladles in and are happily whisking away pour the mix back into the saucepan with the rest of the cream.  DO NOT STOP WHISKING for about a minute or so.  Then put the pan over lowish heat and switch to a wooden spoon.  (I think a flat edged wooden spoon is the best)  Once you have heated your custard to the point where you get big flubby bubbles coming to the surface, you are done.  Since I was making triple chocolate mousse, I separated the custard into three bowls to cool.  I melted three different chocolates- white, milk and dark.  When everything was coolish I folded them together along with a little whipped cream.  Then I layered these beauties into Martini glasses and set them in the fridge to set up.  When it was time to serve, I brought them to room temp and added a raspberry and dark chocolate shavings... tada.......  instant hit!