My two kids started a whisper campaign about my baking. Bea, my 9-year-old, insists I burned the bottoms of their cupcakes at their fourth birthday celebration. I honestly don’t remember doing so, but they are insistent. Note: My husband just read this and points out that they were pretty loud in their campaign, and it was not whispered.

As a result of the campaign, my baking privileges have more or less been revoked by my family. I still oversee the menu and provide most recipes, but I now take a back seat to my 11-year-old and husband.

I acquired a sourdough starter because my quirky stomach does best with sourdough baked goods and I do enjoy my desserts. My husband, who has more of a science mind than myself, has developed into an exceptional sourdough baker. He now bakes our sourdough challah every week, and our freezer is filled with sourdough English muffins (I went on a tuna melt streak this month), and sourdough waffles. To wit, we are on our second 20-pound bag of King Arthur Flour from Costco.

My daughter’s baking skills, which have grown more and more every year, were sculpted this past summer by a baking summer camp hosted by Holyoke Community College’s culinary program. Each day, the baked goods, which grew more grand every day of the camp, delighted our household. Airy macarons, bubbled focaccia, spiced linzer tortes, and fluffy chocolate mousse cake were some of the confections we enjoyed.

This chocolate mousse has made repeated appearances as dessert this fall. Of course, I distracted Lilli one of the times which caused our mousse to be grainy. I still ate it. Afterwards, I looked into it, and it seems over-whipping causes your heavy cream to separate into solids. Essentially, that cream breaks down into butter, disrupting the final texture of your mousse.

For your double boiler, which is a saucepan with water at the very bottom set to simmer with a metal bowl on top, make sure the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl.

We’ve enjoyed this mousse plain, topped with fresh whipped cream, and most recently in a trifle to celebrate Zayde’s 75th birthday. Perhaps this will make it onto your Thanksgiving dessert table. There is no wrong way to eat mousse.

Ingredients:

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7.5 oz chocolate chips

3 oz small pieces of unsalted butter

2 cups heavy cream

2.2 oz powder sugar

Directions:

Melt chocolate and butter together in a double boiler on medium heat.

In a mixer, whip up heavy cream and powdered sugar until soft peaks form.

Using a rubber spatula, fold the whipped cream into the melted chocolate mixture.

Pour into molds and set in fridge until fully chilled.

Try not to eat all in one sitting.

Molly Parr lives in Florence with her husband and two young daughters. She’s been writing her food blog, Cheap Beets, since 2010. Send questions or comments to molly.parr@gmail.com.