There’s an inherent pleasure in having something by heart. Poetry at school. Lines in plays. Song lyrics. The things that stick tend to be those that we had by rote when we were young. We get out of the habit, and our gears don’t move as smoothly.

When I was at pâtisserie school, we were expected to memorise countless different base recipes – crème pâtissière, brioche, pâte brisée, pâte sablé, pâte sucrée – and our termly theory exams required us to regurgitate these formulae. I spent hours learning the ratios and the quantities, the steps and techniques, convinced I would have them down pat for evermore. But, like the Spanish GCSE I took in six months, the Shakespeare quotations I learnt for finals, or instructions to repressurise my boiler, once the critical moment was over, they flew from my head.

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That doesn’t stop me trying – it just means that getting something to stick requires true effort now. When you do successfully get recipes by heart, it frees you; you can get on with the pleasurable bit of cooking without constant nervous reference to books. This is just one of the reasons I love chocolate mousse. It is the simplest and most scalable of puddings. For each person, use one egg, 30g........

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