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.