Monday June 14, 2010
Boulder, Colorado
Rain, Thunder and Lightening
Started my vacation on Friday where I'll be spending a good week with my nephews hanging out in Boulder. The plan was to do a lot of outdoors activities but because the weather gods knew I was coming, I've been greeted with a couple of hail storms, thunder, lightening and pouring rain. So what to do on rainy Saturday where I have to keep a 10 year old boy full of energy occupied in the house. The great thing about Jackson (my 10 year old nephew) is that he really is into food. So he wanted to have a gourmet dinner of steak, mashed potatoes, asparagus and chocolate mousse cake for dessert. He found a recipe of the cake from Cook's Illustrated that he wanted to try (or have me try to make). It's a 3 tiered cake where the base layer is a flour less chocolate cake, the second layer a dark chocolate mousse and the 3rd layer a white chocolate mouse. Read the recipe, and while time consuming, not too difficult to make. As usual, Cook's tests their recipes thoroughly so we ended up with a decadent but very good chocolate cake.
The 1st layer (cake) ready to go into the oven. I was a bit worried as it's a flour less cake where meringue(whipped egg whites) are used to "fluff" up the cake. As I was making this in Boulder, I was not sure altitude will affect the cake
Well, it came out OK. Now if I was in Japan. I would cut the edges of the cake to make a perfectly round cake and use a plastic casing to hold the cake and mousse, so the presentation is perfect. But since its just for family, the presentation was more "rough"
The second layer is a bittersweet chocolate mousse layer. Cook's Illustrated recommended Ghirardelli's bittersweet chocolate so that is what I used. I over whipped the whipping cream a bit too much so the mouse was a bit dense but Jackson gave it a seal of approval!
The third layer is a white chocolate mousse layer. I taught Jackson, how to whip cream for mousse. The key is to not over whip. The whipped cream should have a shiny smooth consistency. He luved the white chocolate mousse.
The cake then went into the refrigerator. It had to chill it for about 2 hours minimum. While eating dinner we took it out of the refrigerator to soften (It's recommended to let it stand at room temperature for at least 30 min before serving.
Jackson's serving of the cake.
Yum! He ate the whole decadent piece in one sitting and was wired for the rest of the night!
Highly recommend the recipe!
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