Notes from My Kitchen...

This cake is the second challenge for KBB. The original recipe and the baking instructions are from Cuisine by Penny Oliver (2005).

Cake:
4 eggs, ¾ cup caster sugar, 2/3 cup flour (all-purposed), 1/3 cup
cornflour, 1 tsp baking powder

Beat the eggs with an electric beater until very thick and fluffy.
Slowly add the sugar and continue beating until the mixture becomes
white and very thick. Sift all the dry ingredients together and gently
fold them into the egg mixture. Pour the cake mixture into a buttered
and floured 26-28cm spring form cake tin. Bake in a preheated oven at
190C for 25-30 minutes. Turn the cake onto a rack and cool. Transfer
the sponge to a serving plate. Fix a fold of strong tin foil around the cake to form a collar, ready to receive the chocolate mousse mixture.

Mousse:
250g cooking chocolate, 6 egg yolks, 250g soft butter, 6 egg whites

Melt the chocolate over hot water. Beat the egg yolks and blend with
the chocolate to mix well. Beat in the softened butter. Beat the egg
whites stiff to the stiff peak stage. Fold the stiffly beaten egg
whites into the chocolate mixture. Pour the chocolate mixture over the
cake. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

Note :

For mousse you can mix with some flavours like frangelico, cointreau, brandy, vanilla etc,

Egg whites you can replace with thickened cream and garnish with your taste…!!

Topping:
300ml cream, whipped, 100g cooking chocolate melted with 50ml of cream
and 3 Tbs of brandy

Cover the cake with whipped cream and drizzle over a little melted,
flavoured chocolate. With each slice of cake serve a little extra
flavoured, melted chocolate on the side.

 

 

Here is half of the recipe and including the extras.

 

Sponge cake:

2 eggs

125 g sugar

40 g all purpose flour

20 g corn flour

½ tsp baking powder

+ 1 tsp vanilla extract

 

Chocolate mousse:

125 g chocolate (25 g 85% Lindt chocolate + 100 g Cadbury milk chocolate chips)

3 yolks

125 g reduced salt butter

3 whites

+ 8 tsp Cointreau

+ 1 tsp cocoa de liquor

 

Topping:

200 mL whipping cream, Bulla

+ ¼ tsp gelatine powder (the idea was from Diana's dessert)

+ ½ tsp vanilla extract

+ 1 Tbsp icing sugar

 

100 g Cadbury milk chocolate chips

50 mL whipping cream

 

+ glace cherries

 

 

      

 

• Since the quantity is slightly on the bigger portion for us, I halved the quantity of the original recipe. I used spring form tin with 20.5 cm in diameter.
• At 19 minutes, the cake was still wet. The total baking baking time was 24 minutes but I think it was slightly too long as the bottom of the cake was quite dark.
• I should use the side of the spring form tin to hold the baking paper. It will hold the paper tighter so that the mousse would not seep out.
• I put a little bit too much Cointreau in the mousse as I was afraid of taking raw eggs... what an excuse
• I added icing sugar and gelatine to prevent weeping whipped cream. The texture of the whipped cream is mousse like.
• I find Cadbury milk chocolate chips having better taste and flavour than Nestle brand.
• I still need to learn to decorate the cake. It's damn difficult man to do it neatly!!!

 

 

Verdicts from the testers on the cake that I made:

 

Pro:

- Nice, very velvety

- Not too sweet, just nice

 

 

Con:

- A touch too much cointreau so that the taste is overpowering the chocolate taste. However, the flavour becomes milder after 2 days.

- The sponge is slightly too dry. My colleague suggested adding some punch so it will be like tiramisu. Thus, the texture will not be too contrast.

- Slightly too sweet (I guess it depends on the preference)