Chocolate Espresso Mousse Cake

For all the coffee and chocolate lovers out there - this is the perfect cake. This cake can be found on one of my favorite blogs - Tartelette. I love Tartelette for its beautiful photography - it is literally eye candy. Helene's photography isn't the only reason why I like her blog - her recipes always sound delectable and perfect for a real special treat. I saw this post over a month ago and wanted to make the Chocolate Espresso Mousse Cake for a Valentine's day dessert, but ran out of time. I am not going to post her recipe (copyright issues), but you can click here to see it on her blog and check out her photos (they put mine to shame). The cake is two layers with a generous espresso mousse center, along with crunchy cake crumbs. Below are my pictures of the process, which was a little more time consuming than Helene's recipe because I only had one cake pan instead of two.

Here are the ingredients for the cake:
First begin by preparing your cake pans with butter, flour, and parchment paper on the bottom.
With hand mixer, cream butter and sugar and then on a low speed add cocoa powder.Then add eggs one at a time until well incorporated.Add flour, espresso powder, baking soda, baking powder, and warm water slowly until smooth.
Divide batter in two 8 inch cake pans (I only had one) and bake for 30-40 (0r until toothpick comes out clean) minutes at 325 degrees. My cakes only took 30 minutes. Let cool in pan on rack and then flip out and let cool completely.Now use a serrated knife to cut the tops off the cakes to create an even level.
Reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees and take the cake tops and crumble into bits onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 15 minutes or until cake bits are crunchy. Let cool and then place bits into a food processor and process until small crumbs.
Now it is time to work on your mousse, which in my opinion is the best part. Here are the ingredients for the mousse:
Place butter, espresso, chopped chocolate, and milk into a heat proof bowl and place over a pot of simmering water creating a double boiler. Melt until smooth and remove from heat. Let cool until lukewarm and add egg yolk, whisk until combined.
Take your heavy whipping cream and mix until medium peaks form. Fold into chocolate mixture until well combined.
Now it is time to assemble your cake. Take a spring form cake pan and place the bottom layer of your cake in the center. I had a spring form that was 10 inches, so it would be better to have an 8 inch pan so that your cake would turn out neater.
Place mousse on top of the bottom level. This became a little messy, but I knew it would still taste good. I ended up taking the excess mousse that squeezed out between the layers and frosting the sides with it.
Now place in the refrigerator for at least an hour so the mousse can firm up.

When it comes to serving, slice the cake and sprinkle generously with the cake crumbs. This give the cake a fun crunch. I don't have a picture of the sliced cake, because my coworkers ate it too quickly, but it was good. My coworker also brought cupcakes which I had to snap a picture of because they were so beautiful.
A couple of my favorite parts about the cake were the crumbs and the mousse. I ended up taking the crumbs and placing them on ice cream. I think this is great solution for all the other cake tops I have sliced off and threw away. I am going to make cake crumbs from now on.
Since I loved the mousse so much, I am going to make it again, but instead of cake for it to go in between, I am going to make crunchy chocolate cookies. I think they will be pretty delicious.

Ode To Haight-Ashbury

Last Sunday I met up with some friends in Brooklyn to watch the Super Bowl. It was actually a Pig Skin-Pulled Pork Potluck/Super Bowl/Birthday Party. Obviously, the real reason I went was for the food and birthday, not for the football. There were some really delicious items including homemade quick pickles and these pumpkin chocolate raisin bars (I have no idea what the official name was). I am hoping to get both recipes soon!

Being a vegetarian, I brought a quinoa salad (I will be posting the recipe later this week) and a rainbow cake. The rainbow cake was a collaboration between myself and a dear friend who quite frankly is a disaster in the kitchen. Literally, one of the first times I saw him cook, he was boiling pasta in a tiny pot and was holding a flaming potholder while trying to inconspicuously it blow out. Being a busy grad student at Columbia he doesn't have much time to cook, but last weekend he took the time to bake the cake with me (basically I directed and he did the work).

I found the rainbow cake recipe on the hilarious food blog The Omnomicon. Click here for the original posting. The rainbow cake is much simpler than it looks, it is just dyed cake batter layered into a cake pan. I couldn't find the gel food coloring that Aleta recommended so I just used regular food coloring dye and the cake still turned out pretty vibrant. She also used a Jello frosting recipe, but I decided to make a buttercream frosting - because to be honest I only eat cake for the frosting. Although I like making things from scratch, I was alright with using a box mix and a bottle of diet Sprite since this was my friend's first baking experience. I didn't want to overwhelm him, plus adding Sprite sounded pretty interesting. The recipe is super simple, but be prepared to have a lot of dirty bowls. It is totally worth it! Let's begin:
The cake is a two layer cake so all you need is the following:
-2 white cake mixes
-1 large bottle of Sprite (20 ounces)
-Food Coloring (4 color box: blue, green, yellow, red)
You simply mix the cake mix with the bottle of diet Sprite and then you are ready to divide your batter and create the rainbow colors. I know that it is crazy to imagine that you don't need eggs or oil, but the Sprite really does the trick. I will say that you should still grease the pan with Pam or butter. I had some issues getting the cakes out without some of the cake sticking to the bottom (thank goodness for frosting to cover the mistakes).
The batter makes a little over 6 cups. Since I made six colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple), I divided the batter into 1 cup plus a little more into each bowl (6 total). Each bowl has about 20 drops of food coloring in each one (read the instructions on the food coloring box to see how to mix orange and purple).
Now it is time to layer your colored batter into the two pans. The order I did was red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple for one pan, and the other pan I did the reverse order. Simply, take each bowl and divide your batter evening into both pans (essentially 1/2 cup of the batter per pan). You can do whatever combination you want (like warm colors in one pan, and cool in the other).
Bake according to the time length and temperature on the box. Let cool completely and then you are ready to frost your cake.
Now time for the frosting! Buttercream frosting is comprised of just two ingredients: softened butter and powdered sugar. You can then add flavoring, in this case vanilla. Although the process is simple enough, it is surprisingly time consuming. I got my recipe from Martha Stewart Living February 2009 edition. For 4 cups of buttercream frosting you need:
-3 sticks unsalted butter (softened)
-1 pound of powdered sugar
-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Beat the butter on medium high until nice and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Then add 1/2 sugar and beat on medium high for 5 minutes. You will beat the frosting for 5 minutes every 1/2 cup you add. After every two 1/2 cups you increase the speed to high for 10 seconds. After you have mixed all the powdered sugar in you add the vanilla and beat until the frosting is nice and smooth. (This would also be the place to add food coloring if you want to).
A trick I learned recently was to place four pieces of wax paper on the bottom of the cake before frosting. At the end of frosting you can pull out the wax paper and the plate you were frosting will be nice and clean - ready for presentation. To start, simply smooth the frosting on top of the first layer of cake (which has the top cut off for an even base) and then add the second cake on top. Then cover the whole cake with frosting - starting with the top and working down the sides.
I added pink sprinkles on top of the frosting to give it a little flare, but I really wanted to keep the outside quiet and inside loud.
The cake might be a bit of a mess, but the reaction at the party was definitely worth it. Quite the show stopper! In my opinion, it was way more impressive than the Steeler's final touchdown ;)