Sunday, January 11, 2009

Chocolate Mousse Cake

For the past couple of months, I've spent my Sunday mornings at an advanced baking series at the New School of Cooking. Although I had to give up my lazy Sunday mornings (definitely had to double up on the coffee consumption --- wake up Linda!), I've learned a lot and made some terrific desserts in the process. Also, I've been fortunate to have a friend join me in class, MaryJo of Bash! Cakes & Desserts, and we had a blast baking together.

We made this chocolate mousse cake to learn all about genoise and mousse, and I've now overcome my fear of baking cakes that don't use any chemical leaveners. The key is getting the cake batter to the right volume and consistency (for me, it meant not undermixing). The resulting cake was delicious...my DH shamelessly hoarded this cake for himself, so that's definitely a sign that this cake was a success!

MaryJo also wrote about the other dessert we made this class, a delicious yellow genoise w. passionfruit mousse, and you can find the link to this post here.

Cocoa Genoise
1/3 C cake flour
1/3 C cocoa
2/3 C + 1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp butter, melted
3 eggs
2 yolks
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 9" round cake pan and line with parchment paper.

Sift cake flour, cocoa and 1 Tspn sugar 2 times

Over a bain marie, heat eggs and remaining 2/3 C sugar to 110F.

Transfer the egg mixture to a standing mixer. Using a whisk attachment, whip until mixture is thick and pale yellow, and about three times the original volume.

Gently fold in the dry ingredients, butter and vanilla.

Bake for about 25 minutes. Cool in pan for 15 minutes then transfer to cooling rack


Chocolate Mousse
2/3 C ganache (recipe follows)
1 C heavy cream, whipped

Fold the cream into the cooled ganache


Ganache
8 oz heavy cream
8 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Scald cream and pour over chocolate. Let site for 2 minutes. Mix together and cool to room temperature.


Assembly
1 cocoa genoise
simple syrup
chocolate mousse
sweetened whipped cream
chopped chocolate (for garnish)

Slice cooled cake crosswise and brush both halves with simple syrup.

Place one half of the cake on a serving platter or cake board. Spread half of the chocolate mousse evenly over the cake. Top with the other cake half and repeat with the chocolate mousse.

Chill until mousse sets, and then top with the sweetened whipped cream. Garnish with chopped chocolate.

19 comments:

Mari said...

This cake looks fabulous and rich! Such beautiful layers, definitely worth your Sunday mornings!

Sonya said...

WOW It's seem fabulous....hmmm....The kind of cake that I can't résist hihihi

Bravo

The Food Librarian said...

This looks amazing!! I always read about NS classes and it sounds like they are really good - look at those results!!

pigpigscorner said...

Chocolate! Looks really pretty and delicious!

Anonymous said...

The cake looks amazing. It's my dream to take that course from the New School. It's the pro bakers one, right?

vanillasugarblog said...

oh my goodness...this is a very tempting photo.
I must try this.

Anonymous said...

I am such a sucker for chocolate mousse. This cake looks incredible! What a fun class!

Cakebrain said...

Ooooh! Gorgeous cake!

My Sweet & Saucy said...

What a decadent looking cake!

Anonymous said...

Wow. That looks so good. You can never go wrong with chocolate. I also have a question. How do you join the cake slice group? I went to their blog and didn't see a place to send an email or anything. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

This looks really delicious.

Jodie said...

This looks amazing. I'm going to have to make it!!!

Cooking for Comfort by Jennifer said...

HOLY COW! Could you PULEEZE send me some of that?

Gigi said...

oh that cake looks amazing! i would a huge slice! yum.

Carol Peterman/TableFare said...

Fantastic looking cake! I would get up early on Sundays for a baking class. It sounds like great fun. I bookmarked the school's site in case I am ever in the area with time for a class.

LyB said...

Oh, my, my! That looks absolutely sinful! I would love to take a class like that, sounds like so much fun. :)

Mary Jo said...

linda,
your chocolate mousse cake looks so yummy, great picture! i'm sad we won't have our sunday morning baking time each week, i had so much fun. thanks for the shout out in your post :)
mj

Anonymous said...

That cake is divine--so beautiful :)!

Anonymous said...

Hey! Looks yummy, but is that recipes for the mousse you provided required?

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