Strawberry and chocolate mousse cake

I miss my baking so much, since moving to my new house I don't have the time like I use to have. Because I am now so busy, I can only bake something easy and less time consuming.

Although my plan was to make a simple mousse cake, I somehow made a two layer mousse cake to then bake a chocolate sponge for it and made a chocolate mirror glaze!! Phew!
Did I make it easy for myself? Well, not when you see the washing up I had after!

Anyway I felt amazing, despite all the washing up cos my kids were both super impressed!
Mummy have done it again!
 

I had this vision in my head how I want this cake to look.
I realised I had nothing to decorate it with so I rushed out to buy more strawberries but only to find that the strawberries the supermarkets had were way too big for my cake, so I ended up using raspberries instead.

Which is why so many people thought I have accidentally typed in strawberries mousse instead of raspberries!
I should have said it's a Strawberry mousse cake topped with fresh raspberries.
When you make this cake feel free to use raspberries or strawberries.

Ok I guess you have been waiting too long for my recipe, so shall we crack on!

Right first of all this cake consists of 4 parts
Chocolate mirror glaze (top layer)
Strawberry mousse (3rd layer)
Chocolate mousse (2nd layer)
Chocolate sponge (Bottom)

I used an 8 inch spring form tin to bake the chocolate sponge, and used a small an 8 inch loose bottom tin to assemble the layers.  You'd be surprise that 8 inch tins are not all the same.

First of all let's bake a chocolate genoise cake working our way from the bottom layer first.
Line an 8 inch spring form tin with baking paper and preheat the oven at 180c (take note that different oven provides different temperature)

Chocolate sponge (Bottom)
Ingredients:
2 large eggs
60g caster sugar
40g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
20g melted butter

Refer to the method on here for the genoise sponge.

 

 Once the sponge have cooled down, line a loose bottom cake tin and place the chocolate sponge at the bottom. Set aside.

Chocolate mousse (2nd layer)
Ingredients:
(A)
Ganache;
100g milk or dark chocolate
50g double cream

Melt the chocolate and fold the cream in carefully until combined.

(B)
150g double cream
1/2 tbsp icing sugar

Whisk the cream with icing sugar until medium firm peaks.

Fold A into B until light and fluffy. There you have a simple chocolate mousse.

 

Pour this straight on top of the chocolate sponge, smooth off the top and chill in the fridge.

Strawberry mousse (layer 3)
Ingredients:
 150g fresh strawberries, washed and hulled
15g caster sugar
150g double cream
25g icing sugar
8g gelatine soaked in 50g water to bloom

Method:
Once gelatine have bloomed, dissolve into liquid.
Whisk cream to firm peaks and add icing sugar set aside.
Blend the strawberries with sugar into puree and mix in the cooled gelatine liquid.
Fold in the strawberry puree into the cream and mix until combined.

Remove the chocolate sponge and mousse from the fridge, pour over the strawberry mousse and smooth off the top. Put back into the fridge to chill.

Chocolate mirror glaze (top layer)

Link below is the recipe for the mirror glaze.
http://mandysbakingjourney.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/chocolate-lacquer-glaze-mirror-glaze.html

You can make this first as it does require to cool down before you pour it over the cake.

Once you have chilled the cake for 2 hours, remove from the fridge and push the cake out then tidy up the mousse using a warm knife to smooth off the edges and seal off any gaps.

 

 

Pour mirror glaze over the cake and cover it up completely, you may have extra glaze so you do not need to use up all of it.  If you want to create the effects on the glaze like my cake, chill for 20 minutes and using a small warm palette knife holding horizontally, starting from the bottom, press onto the side of the cake and turn until it has gone all the way round, repeat to the top of the cake.

I used raspberries as explain on the top of my post, you can use anything you like to decorate.
Maybe biscuit crumbs, hazelnuts, chocolate shavings etc.....

Chill for 2 hours and its ready to serve.

Hope you like this recipe, if you don't like it too sweet you can reduce the sugar in the mousse and taste it before you pour into the tin. But don't reduce the sugar in the glaze.