This week we celebrate Lag BaOmer and I wanted to share a recipe to fit the holiday spirit. But I found myself thinking about the holiday a lot, what does it Lag BaOmer even mean? Well, Lag BaOmer always takes place on the 18th day of the month of Iyar. So, the word “Lag" is made up of the Hebrew letters Lamed and Gimel, and together they have the numerical value of 33. “BaOmer" stands for “of the Omer." The Omer is the counting period that starts on the second day of Passover and comes to a head with the holiday of Shavuot, following day number 49.
Therefore, Lag BaOmer is the 33rd day of the Omer count, which also coincides with 18 Iyar. But why do we count the days? One reason is that Shavuot is the holiday when we received the Torah on Mount Sinai and we are excited and have waiting for it so that’s why we count the days. The days of counting the Omer are a mourning period for Jews. On the 33rd day, all the mourning customs stop for a day and you are allowed to celebrate. This day symbolizes when the Bar Kokhba revolt defeated the Roman Empire. The rebels light torches and bonfires to spread the word about the revolt and therefore, the most common custom is lighting of bonfires during Lag BaOmer.
But enough about history, let’s talk about food. During Lag BaOmer, you usually cook potatoes and sweets, like marshmallows on a stick. However, I wanted something that was a bit more elegant. That’s why I made individual cups of chocolate mousse and you don't even really have it near the bonfire. My chocolate mousse has a bonfire design which I think is very festive ☺
The recipe is very simple to make (which is a common theme in my blog!) and you can make it parve using non-dairy whipping cream.
The decorations for the mousse are made from hard candies that I melted and broke to look like flames of fire and for the "wood", you can use pretzels or rolled wafer cookies. If you need a bigger dessert or you just don't want a cup dessert, you can also decorate a chocolate cake with these decorations.
Happy Lag BaOmer! Get started making this delicious dessert, check out the recipe for Lag BaOmer Chocolate Mousse below:
Lag BaOmer Chocolate Mousse Dessert
Ingredients
- 1 cup whipping cream
- 2 cups (8.8 oz. / 250 grams) dark chocolate
For garnish:
- 10 red / yellow / orange hard candies
- Pretzels sticks or rolled wafer cookies
Instructions
- In a small pot, place the whipping cream and bring to a light boil on high.
- Place the dark chocolate in a bowl.
- Pour the whipping cream on the chocolate and let it sit for 1-2 minutes.
- Mix the batter until it unifies and is smooth.
- Cool the batter in the fridge for 1 hour.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, place the cold batter.
- Whip to stiff peaks with the whipping attachment.
- Transfer the mousse to a piping bag.
- Pipe the mousse in small cups.
- To create the flames, place a baking paper on a baking pan and set the oven to 160°C / 325°F with the fan.
- Unwrap the candies and place them in a small sandwich bag, crush them using a rolling pin.
- Spread the crushed hard candies on the baking pan and bake for 3-6 minutes.
- Look in the oven and see if the candies are melted, be careful not to burn them! (I recommend keeping an eye on the candies as they melt).
- Take the baking pan out of the oven and let the melted candies cool.
- Break the candies into small shapes of flames.
- Decorate each cup with "flames" and "woods".
- Enjoy a cup and Lag BaOmer!
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