Nutella Chocolate Mousse Cake

This is the birthday cake for dear husband's 2nd niece V. Time flies, I still remember when first known her, she was just a new born baby and now she has grown up to be a lovely adorable teenage girl. I can never forget her age, cos her age is same years I known dear husband and what's else, we share the same chinese horoscope :).

She likes dolls since toddler and she is the collector of barbie and other expensive dolls (luckily her parents are rich enough to substain her hobby :P). And since I am able to get the barbie edible icing, I decided to use it to deco the cake.

Understand from SIL that she likes chocolate cake, I have been searching for good chocolate recipes and short-listed a few with good reviews.



Finally until the day before baking, I decided that I should bake the rich chocolate cake from Honey Bee Sweets. Since a chocolate lover like her praised on this cake, I shouldn't hesitate to try it.



I didn't use the chocolate buttercream from HBS as I am not sure will V like buttercream but I am quite sure she and her siblings will definately like chocolate mousse. Thus, I looked through all my recipes and narrowed down at this recipe from Kitchen Corner. Beside looking delicious, another reason is the egg yolks will be cooked. I am not quite comfortable to let kids eat uncook eggs which a lot of mousse recipes do not cook the yolks.


Furthermore, I dun need to be headache about the left over egg yolks from the chocolate cake, I can use them for the chocolate mousse. :)

Ingredients : (for 6" cake tin and 2 cupcakes for me to taste the cake)

For Chocolate butter cake from HBS
90g unsalted butter, room temperature
150g caster sugar (I reduced to 120g)
75g cake flour
50g unsweetened coca powder
1/2 tbsp baking powder
100ml fresh milk (I used UHT milk)
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Method:
1. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and 100g sugar together.
2. Sieve the flour, coca powder, salt and baking powder into the butter mixture. Mix well.
3. Add milk and vanilla extract and stir till well blended.
4. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter and line a 6" round cake pan with parchment paper and butter again.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk egg white till foamy, add reminding sugar and whisk till shiny and almost stiff peak.
6. Gently fold in the egg white to the flour mixture till just incorporated.
7. Pour batter into prepared cake pan and bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes for till tester comes out clean.

For Nutella Chocolate Mousse : adapted from Kitchen Corner
20g egg yolks (I used the 2 yolks left over from the chocolate butter cake)
30g sugar
80ml melted butter (I used 80g of butter to melt)
150g dark chocolate (I used 100g dark chocolate 50g nutella)
250ml whipped cream
5g gelatin powder + 20ml water (I added this cos not sure will the mousse melt easily)

* left a little after the pipping.

Method :
1. Measure water into a bowl and sprinkle in the gelatin (without stirring with a spoon). Set aside to allow the gelatin grains to swell (10 mins) before setting the bowl over a pot of simmering hot water. Stir with a spoon and once the gelatin melts, remove the bowl from the pot and set aside to cool to room temperature.
2. Melt dark chocolate and nutella over a pot of simmering hot water and stir till mix well and set aside to cool down to room temperature.
3. Whisk the egg yolk and sugar on a double boiler until pale in color and thicken. Mix in the melted butter.
4. Add the melted dark chocolate & nutella to the egg yolk mixture, mix until well combine.
5. Add in the gelatin solution and mix well.
6. Fold in the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture.
7. If desired, remove about 1 cup of the chocolate mousse, set aside to use for piping.

To assemble:
1. Slice the cake horizontally into 2 layers.
2. Place one layer of the chocolate butter cake in a 7" round pan with a removable base/springform pan. Spread about 1/2 of chocolate mousse on the cake layer. Send in to the fridge for 15 mins to let it set a bit.
3. Place the last layer of chocolate cake on on the chocolate mousse and spread the remaining filling on the surface evenly. Gently tap/bang the pan on the table to remove any empty air pockets in between the cake layers and the filling. Leave the cake to chill in the fridge for at least 3~4 hours or overnight. If you like the filling to be ice cream alike, you may freeze it.
4. Remove cake from fridge, unmold and decorate as desired (pipe rosettes using the reserved chocolate mousse). Keep the cake in the fridge before serving.

Verdict?
The chocolate butter cake indeed is very rich and chocolately. And for the mousse, taste really yummy and I think if freeze it sure taste like ice-cream. But I can hardly taste of nutella, probably put too little liao.