Journey to the sweet side: Triple mousse cake

If the oven is your addiction of choice, you bake for any occasion. Any excuse is good enough. Birthday, anniversary, holiday, moving party, your kid goes to school, your kid finishes school, it's the weekend, basically anything. You must really fight the urge to bake for any menial occasion like it it is the biggest event of the year. A while ago I changed my job and before I left, I treated my soon to be former colleagues to some homemade deliciousness. That's a good enough reason right? To lessen the blow? Suuuuure. I've baked for way less important occasions, so a life milestone must qualify!

This dessert caught my eye as soon as I saw its photo on Pinterest. And let me tell you it turns out it is not just love at first sight, but also love at first taste. Like so good that when you take it out of the fridge, you know that you will not be putting any of the leftovers back again. Or if you bring it to work and you have to disappoint your dear husband that there is no more pieces left for his taste test. Better luck next time. Because with this one, there is sure to be a next time.

For a 16 cm sized cake (double for 26 cm sized cake):

Brownie base:

50 g flour

40 g bitter cocoa

2 g salt

2 g baking powder

60 g butter

100 g brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp of vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean

Chocolate mousse:

130 g dark chocolate

210 ml cream

pinch of salt

3 g gelatin (1 tsp)

15 ml water (1 tbsp)

Raspberry mousse:

130 g white chocolate

180 ml cream

pinch of salt

3 g gelatin (1 tsp)

15 ml water (1 tbsp)

red food colour

100 g raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Vanilla mousse:

130 g white chocolate

180 ml cream

2 tbsp honey (30 g)
1 vanilla bean

pinch of salt

3 g gelatin (1 tsp)

15 ml water (1 tbsp)

To decorate:

60 g dark chocolate

60 ml cream

60 g fresh raspberries

Brownie base

Mix flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder together in a bowl and set aside.

Cut the butter into smaller pieces, melt them on low heat and add sugar. Let the sugar dissolve, but don't let it boil. The sugar might not entirely dissolve, but that is ok, as long as at least most of it dissolves. Remove from heat and wait until it cools to room temperature, then add eggs and vanilla.

Lastly add the dry ingredients. The batter will be very thick.

Pour it in a greased and floured cake pan and bake at 180° C for approx. 25 minut or until the toothpick comes out dry or with only a few crumbs attached.

This sponge will be really dense, actually it is not really a sponge, but really more like a mix between fudge and brownie. If you want a softer base, you should use another recipe.

Chocolate mousse

Chop the chocolate into pieces and heat it together with 90 ml of cream and salt in the microwave. Heat until almost boiling, leave it for a few minutes, then stir to melt the chocolate. Leave to cool to room temperature.

Soak the gelatin in water and let it bloom. Whip up the remaining 120 ml of cream. sladke smetane. Once the chocolate has cooled, melt the gelatin in the microwave and add it to the chocolate. Mix well and add the whipped cream.

Put the brownie base on a serving plate and line it with baking paper or acetate and a cake ring.

Pour the mousse on the brownie and let it cool in the fridge for 20 minutes. It needs to set at least that much that we can pour the next layer on without them mixing.

Raspberry mousse

For the next layer puree 40 g of raspberries and use a fine mesh sieve to strain it to remove the seeds. Add 60 ml of cream together with a pinch of salt and heat it in a microwave the same as the dark chocolate mousse.

For visual effect you can add some red food colour because truthfully this will come out way more white than pink otherwise. I recommend gel food colours, which are highly concentrated, so use them just in small amounts. Repeat the step with gelatin and whipped cream as before with the previous mousse and pour it on the set chocolate mousse. Place whole raspberries into the raspberry mixture. If you want this to be more fruity, don't skimp on the raspberries, because I was hardly able to taste them in the mousse. The white chocolate is way to strong unfortunately (scroll to the bottom of the page for the solution).

Again let it cool in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Vanilla mousse

Prepare the final mousse layer by chopping up white chocolate and mixing it with 60 ml cream, honey, vanilla and salt and melting it in the microwave.

Repeat the step with gelatin and whipped cream as before with the previous mousses and pour it on the set chocolate mousse. Don't be alarmed by the colour of the mix, it will be kind of brown-ish and unlike the one you see in the finished photos, but once the mousse sets, it will lighten up and be more of a off white colour. Leave in the fridge overnight.

Final decorating

Chop up the dark chocolate and melt it together with the cream and let it cool a bit. Take the mousse from the fridge, remove the baking paper/acetate and the ring and pour the ganache over the top. The ganache should really cool to be a bit thicker. You can see that I was a little too impatient and my ganache was more on the runny side, hence the rim of the mousse shows through. Some fresh raspberries on top, but that is just my preference. Decorate as you wish and enjoy!