STRAWBERRY CREAM CHEESE MOUSSE

This creamy strawberry mousse with addition of cream cheese is smooth, refreshing and simplest summer dessert when strawberries are in season.

If  I had to choose my favourite fruit, it would be strawberries. Heart shaped, sweet, pretty red and pink colours.  And so many varieties how to use strawberries, fresh, in jams, smoothies, in desserts…endless possibilities.

Strawberry season is quickly approaching here in Canada and I love light, creamy and quick desserts with strawberries. I have decided to whip this easy strawberry mousse with a bit of cream cheese. This strawberry mousse is super simple to make, no special tools required and made in very short of time.

I promise this dessert won’t leave your kitchen messy and everybody in your family will love this strawberry bursting flavourful dessert.

What will you need for strawberry mousse

Classic mousse usually contains eggs and must be cooked, which takes some time to make. But this strawberry mousse is not cooked, and it doesn’t raw eggs. So it’s totally egg-less.

Ingredients for strawberry mousse

• gelatin
• boiling water
• fresh strawberries
• cream cheese or sour cream
• cold water
• vanilla extract
• whipped cream or heavy cream
• sliced strawberries and mint for garnish

This strawberry mousse is made with fresh strawberries, a little of cream cheese, gelatin, so it can settle and hold well together and heavy cream (whipping cream) for the fluffiness. If you do not like cream cheese, you can substitute for sour cream or Greek yogourt. Sour cream or yogourt will add a little tangy, refreshing taste to this strawberry mousse. But because I love creamy texture from cream cheese, I will still add a little 1/2 of a cup of soft cream cheese.

Strawberry needs to be fresh, because we want to have a fresh taste of strawberries, and we do not want any extra content of water from frozen strawberries. I strongly recommend using fresh strawberries for this strawberry mousse.

How to make strawberry mousse

Purée the strawberries

First, we need to start with strawberry purée. I do not cook this purée, simply blend the washed and hulled strawberries in the blender for a good 3-5 minutes, so we have a really smooth texture. Next step is to strain this strawberry purée, to make sure we do not have a seed in our strawberry mousse. You do not want to chew on seeds. Smooth texture of purée guarantee the best experience.

Gelatine

The next step is gelatin. Gelatin will keep well together all the ingredients and will set well the strawberry mousse. If you are using little pouches of gelatin (and I do recommend the pouches in this recipe). You simply follow the instruction on the pouch, or usually the recipe calls for 1/2 cup of boiling water and 1/2 cup of cold water or juice.

But now we need only  1/2 cup of boiling water. In a small bowl, empty the gelatin pouch and pour over boiling water and stir until completely dissolved.  Once the gelatin is well dissolved, add it into the blender. Don’t forget to wash the blender, because we don’t want those leftover seeds sicked inside the blender, when we were blending the strawberry purée.

So we have the gelatin in the blender, and we add all the remaining ingredients, except whipping cream (heavy cream). We add strawberry purée, cream cheese, vanilla extract and cold water. Blend for 1-2 minutes, or until the mixture is perfectly smooth.

Whip the heavy cream

We will now pour this strawberry cream cheese mixture in a large bowl and in another medium bowl will have to whip the whipping cream (heavy cream) until soft peaks.  Once the whipped cream is ready, gently fold in, with wooden spatula the whipped cream in strawberry cream cheese mixture. It has to be well combined, you don’t want to see the whitish color in your mousse.

Assemble the strawberry mousse

Now it’s time to spoon the strawberry mousse in appropriate dessert bowls, or I used my old vintage glasses for cocktails, which I got last time in garage sale. Spoon the strawberry mousse in the cocktail glasses and at the end tap gently with the bowl or glass, so the strawberry mousse sets well. Use a kitchen towel to absorb the chock and really tap gently.

Or you can transfer the strawberry mousse in the pastry bag and pipe it directly in the cocktail glasses, achieving a beautiful swirl. I haven’t tried it myself, by I am confident that it will be a less messy than spoon by spoon adding the mousse. Now leave the strawberry mousse to set and chill in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours.

Before you serve the strawberry mouse, garnish the cups with sliced strawberries and fresh mint leaves. It gives a professional appearance and fresh strawberries are great and refreshing bite in the mousse.

Tips and tricks

If you would like to have a great tasting strawberry mousse, use fresh strawberries. I would not recommend preparing strawberry mousse with defrosted strawberries. Defrosted strawberries tend to contain lots of water and the mousse might be runny.

If you would like to cut a bit on the heaviness, use sour cream or Greek yogourt instead of the cream cheese. It will be less heavy and still very delicious.

Store the strawberry mousse in covered with plastic food wrap and consume within 4-5 days. You may also freeze the strawberry mousse in the freezer for up to 2 months. I would suggest to transfer leftover mousse in airtight container before freezing it. You don’t want you beautiful cocktail glasses to crack in the freezer.

If you like strawberries, like I do, you might like these strawberries desserts. Check out these links below for more strawberry dessert idea

More strawberry recipes

• VALENTINE’S STRAWBERRY PUFF HEARTS
• STRAWBERRY DUMPLINGS WITH COTTAGE CHEESE
• NO-BAKE CHEESECAKE BITES WITH STRAWBERRY CHOCOLATE COATING
• EASY NO CHURN STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM
• EASY BRIE BITES WITH STRAWBERRY SPREAD
• NEW YEARS COCKTAIL IDEAS

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