Am I baking too much with chocolate lately? Well, I think I am. Just can’t help it.
This chocolate mousse can be served alone chilled in a champagne glass for a small group of dinner party. For a large group, just put a bed of cake underneath, and you are ready to go.
(makes a 9″ cake)
Ingredients:
For Chocolate Cake:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups sifted cake-and-pastry flour
1/4 cup cocoa powde4
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup buttermilk
For Chocolate Mousse:
200 grams of of dark chocolate
4 eggs
150 ml whipping cream (very cold)
4 tbsp expresso
2 tbsp rum
2 tsp sugar
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F.
To prepare cake, grease a 9″ springform pan, line bottom and side with parchment paper. Set aside.
In large bowl, beat butter with sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in vanilla.
In separate bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir into butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, making 3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of buttermilk. Scrape into prepared pan; smooth top.
Bake until cake tester comes out clean, around 30 mins. Let cool on rack for 20 mins.
To prepare mousse, make a double boiler and bring the water to a soft simmer. Put the chocolate in a heat resistant bowl and leave to melt. Put a mixing bowl in the freezer.
Split the eggs and whip the eggyolks with the sugar till it becomes light and creamy. Add the melted chocolate, rum and espresso.
Put the cream in the bowl that came out of the freezer and whip untill it becomes stiff. Add the cream to the chocolate mixture and combine with a spatula untill it becomes one liquid.
Beat the eggwhites until it becomes stiff and forms peak and add that to the chocolate mixture.
Pour the chocolate mixture onto the cool cake. Juggle the pan lightly to level the top.
Keep in the refrigerator overnight before serving.
