Friday 19 March 2010

Double Chocolate Mousse Layer Cake

Vegan Double Chocolate Mousse Layer Cake

Happy 8th Birthday to my lovely son!!!

Vegan Double Chocolate Mousse Layer Cake

Chocolate cake, layered with chocolate mousse, topped with chocolate ganache and white chocolate curls, yes, all vegan!

Vegan Double Chocolate Mousse Cake

Phew, this might just be my most mammoth blog post ever! It was my son's 8th birthday yesterday and I've been thinking what kind of cake to do him for awhile now. Ever since his epic vegan burger cake from last year it's been kinda hard to think of things that can top it! I had intended to do something else 'fun' with fondant, like the burger cake, but first couldn't find the coloured fondant I used last year; then when I did find it noticed that they changed companies and that it was not only no longer vegan friendly but not even vegetarian!! This didn't make it impossible, I would have to buy ready made plain fondant and colour it myself with vegan colours, but I really wasn't into doing that! So......I decided to just make him a regular cake but make it rather extravagant, all chocolate, uber-rich and over the top. After all, if anyone can have no problem eating so much sugar, it's an 8 year old ;)

This is basically a combination of two types of cakes I've already done. The cake itself is really just the 'wacky cake' that's out there and the one I used in my quadruple layer chocolate cake, and the mousse filling and ganache topping taken from my chocolate mousse dome cake . I then decided to have a go and making some white chocolate curls to decorate the top. It was my first time making curls, and I love that I had to buy a cheese slice to make them! They turned out ok, some looked better than others as it was so dependent on the chocolate being just soft enough, but looked the part in the end :) This took me 2 days to make but I really could have done with 3!! So if you fancy having a go here are the step by step instructions:

Chocolate Cake:

375g plain flour
300g caster sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
60g unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tsp vanilla extract
160ml vegetable oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
480ml cold water

Preheat oven to 180C / 350F and line the bottom of a high sided 7 or 8" non stick cake pan with a removable bottom or springform sides. Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix together all the liquid ingredients separately. Make a well into the dry and add the liquid and whisk until it all just comes together. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 1 hour 10 minutes. This cake normally just takes half an hour to cook, but as this recipe is doubled and being cooked in 1 pan, not 2, it takes a lot longer to cook. I had to cover it with foil after 1/2 hour to ensure it didn't over cook on top and had to keep checking it with a toothpick. Remove from the oven, place on a wire rack and let fully cool in the pan. Best to leave it overnight.

Next day, remove it from the pan and if you have to, slice the top off so that you have an even cake. Although my top wasn't even I chose not too slice it off, with that crevice I ended up with I would have had to cut too much off, and it was sitting even enough so I didn't worry about it.



Then carefully and evenly slice the cake into 3rds, placing all layers on the wire rack.

Chocolate Mousse Layers:

300g dark vegan chocolate
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp icing sugar
300ml soya whipping cream, in a carton, chilled
3 Tbsp Kahlua, yup, in my child's cake....oh the shame!

Melt the chocolate and set aside to get to room temperature. Whisk up the whipping cream with the icing sugar until light and airy. When the chocolate is still melted but no longer hot and more or less similar in temperature to the cream, whisk it in quickly. It's important to do this fast so that the chocolate doesn't seize up, it will also seize up if the temperature difference between the two is too great. Next whisk in the vanilla and Kahlua.



Assembly:

Take the pan that you baked the cake in and fully line it in cling film.


Place the top 3rd of the sliced cake and place it upside down into the cake pan.


Spoon over half the mousse and level it out. Place the middle slice of cake over top the mousse, then add the other half of the mousse.




Now place the bottom slice of cake on top, or whatever slice has the smoothest top for you as this will be the top which you want as flat as possible. Wrap the excess cling film over the top, gently press down to get out any bubbles in the mousse, and add more cling film if necessary to fully cover the cake.


Place it in the fridge for the mousse to set - about 3 hours.

When set, remove from the fridge and gently pull it out of the cake pan by the cling film.


You may notice some of the mousse sticks out a bit more than the cake. If it does take a palette knife and smooth the mousse all around so that it's nice and even.

Now, make your ganache:

Chocolate Ganache:

200g dark vegan chocolate
170 ml soy or oat cream
20g extra virgin coconut oil, in the solid state, or a vegetable fat like trex
2 tsp kahlua (again!)

Finely chop the chocolate and place in a large bowl. In a small saucepan heat up the cream and fat until it melts and it all just comes to the boil. Quickly pour over the chocolate, leave it a few seconds then whisk it up until smooth and glossy. Whisk in the kahlua. Leave it out at room temperature, stirring now and again until it thickens up slightly. It will be too runny to pour over the cake right away, you want it pourable but thick enough that it will coat the cake nicely.

When it's ready, place the cake on a wire rack with some baking paper underneath to catch any drips. Now simply pour the ganache all over the top and using a palette knife push it over the sides and around the cake. When it is all covered check for any missing bits, or lumps and smooth it out. The ganache does start to set quite quickly, if it gets a bit too thick on the cake you can dip your finger in some warm water to smooth out any lumps or bumps.

White Chocolate Curls:

You will only use about 100g of white chocolate for the cake, but you will need to melt about 300g in order to make the curls.

300g vegan white chocolate buttons

Melt the buttons in the microwave until smooth. Pour into a flat pan with small sides in a rectangular shape that you will be able to run a cheese slice over to get curls. I used a jelly roll pan but made it smaller with some foil, otherwise it would have needed even more chocolate to fill up!


Pop this into the fridge to harden. To make the curls you will need to bring this back up to room temperature, if the chocolate is too hard you won't get curls, just shavings, and if it's too soft your curls will be too thick. You can see in my pictures that I ended up with both those and some just right - it's all experimental!! You simply run the cheese slice over the surface with good, even pressure, try a few and you'll soon realize how much pressure to use and how soft the chocolate will need to be.

Once your curls are made simply place on top of your cake in whatever design you like. I opted for a circular fashion but I'm sure they would have looked good just piled on on top :) It's also best to place these on while the ganache is still soft so that they have something to stick too.

Then, that's it! Two or three days later, your done! Now, servings, we first cut this into 12ths but found as it's so rich and sweet that they were too big, so 16th's or more would be best - the smaller the better really ;) Keep in the fridge and bring slices to room temperature before serving.

Vegan Double Chocolate Mousse Cake




You might also like:

Quadruple Layer Chocolate CakeChocolate Mousse Dome Cake

46 comments:

  1. Wow. Just wow wow wow. Your son is one very, very lucky kid!!

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  2. Wow, that looks amazing! he must be the luckiest 8 year old ever :)

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  3. I am seriously considering getting married just so I can ask if you would be interested in making the cake?

    Looks awesome! And many Happy Returns to the Mini Maple :)

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  4. Debbie.

    Truly Decadent!

    Belated Bitthday wishes to your boy, I bet he was licking his fingers!

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  5. Many thanks for all the comments and B-Day wishes for my boy :) Will gladly make your wedding cake Steve!! Cool ;)

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  6. wow,congratulations on this amazing cake!!! You can come bake for me anytime :)
    Ive really been wanting to make chocolate mousse this last week after seeing it on another blog, and now yours, i think this will have to be fixed very soon! :)
    Hope your son had a lovely day.

    Rose

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  7. this is so so special! well done! and thanks for the step by step tutorial, i love it!

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  8. Thanks so much for all the lovely comments! We are down to just one slice left now!! (it's so good!!)

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  9. Beautiful.

    I'm *way* too lazy to make chocolate curls. I've not tried the white chocolate buttons with them yet - were you able to make them easily without adding extra fat?

    I received a kahlua mousse cake this year for valentines; it's definitely the way forward.

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  10. Thanks Steven! Yeah, Kahlua mousse is the best!!

    I didn't add any fat or anything to the white chocolate. Just melted it and reset it. They curled fine with a cheese slice but it was a little tricky getting the temperature right. If it was too cold I just got shavings and if too warm the curls were too thick. I would say the white chocolate is soft enough to not need any fat, but am unsure about dark chocolate.

    Well, at least my new cheese slice has a purpose now!

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  11. That cake is epic! I am so very impressed with your skills. Thank you for having such an amazing blog and posts.

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  12. Thanks so much Veg-in-Training! I really appreciate that :-)

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  13. You are an inspiration! This looks absolutely awesome. Have finally ordered a case of vegan whipping cream so that I can make this (and this: http://lustrousmusings.blogspot.com/2010/02/white-chocolate-torte.html#comments )
    I would probably be lazy and use white chocolate buttons rather than curls, but otherwise I might try and replicate this following your excellent guidelines. Have been drooling over this for months, it's about time I finally made it! Thank you!

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  14. Thanks so much for the nice comment rainbow!! Hope you have luck with it! It was so, so good! :-)

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  15. Well Debbie, it took me a little while, but I finally made it! It was worth the wait! I have my own favourite chocolate cake recipe that I use, so I stuck with that. I don't have a cake tin as big as yours, so I used two, putting two thirds of the mixture in one (which I then halved) and the rest in the other. This also meant I had to chill the mousse first and then assemble once the mousse was chilled, rather than chilling the cake after assembly. The ganache took quite a long time to cool before decorating, but worked a treat once it was ready. I didn't have enough white chocolate (or time, or patience) to make the curls, so opted for a simply strawberry garnish, and then served the cake with a side of berries. You can see the results on my flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganbow/). Thank you so much for your inspiration and for sharing this wonderful recipe! I and the five other people I shared this with were in chocolate heaven. It was one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten, never mind made!

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  16. Yay! So glad it worked out for you, your pictures look scrumptious!! Seriously makes me want that cake again!! Thanks so much for the comment and letting me know how you got on with it :-)

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  17. Hey,

    i just wanted to give a quick warning about fondant. I don't know about the company you used before ,but almost all fondants are made using alot of gelatin. Just wanted to help out. :)

    Your cake looks beautiful!

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  18. beautiful stuff and now I know how to make that mousse layer work! thanks, love your blog :)

    oh and you are the best mom ever when it comes to birthday cakes!

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  19. Thanks so much Goodness Baker! Welcome!! I hope to be blogging again soon :-)

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  20. OMG this looks Yummyyyyyylicious.... m gonna try it soon n hope works out well as i can never get the muose right lol
    Thnks for awesome share :)

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  21. I don't have a deep pan like that, do you think it would work layering three separately baked cake sections iced together?

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  22. Hi! That should be fine, you could also bake it in two cake pans and slice each in have for a quadruple layer cake like I did here:

    http://www.maplespice.com/2009/05/quadruple-layer-chocolate-cake.html It was made using the same quantity of cake batter.

    But I'm sure 3 separate pans would be fine, the cake will probably be wider and not as high as mine here but that's all :-)

    Hope it works out for you!

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  23. Hi! I have just discovered your website and I love it! You are amazingly creative! I would love to make the chocolate mousse cake but don't know where to find the soya whipping cream. I live in Pittsburgh, Pa - I will start at Wholefoods in my search. Thank you for posting your wonderful VEGAN recipes!

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  24. Thanks so much Holly!

    For the soya whipping cream I used one by Granovita which unfortunately seems to not be made anymore :-( I'm quite distraught about this!!

    Another company I can get here is Soyatoo, also in a carton (not a spray can) but I haven't tried it with my mousse yet.

    I hope you find a suitable replacement over there. In any case there are multiple recipes out there for tofu based mousses but I find they are never proper mousse like in texture like this one was. Still, should taste good!

    Best of luck :-)

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  25. I just would like to check with you, there is no eggs in this recipe?

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  26. That's right! My blog is all vegan so there are no eggs at all :-)

    Regards,
    Deb ♥

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  27. Ugh, I am literally drooling on my keyboard right now.

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  28. I am attempting to my my own variation of this cake, mixed with the 4 layer choc buttercream cake, and a few other little bits.
    About to do the ganache, so far so good. Will lte you know how it tastes :D

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  29. Excellent! Hope you like it! :-)

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  30. I made this yesterday and it was AMAZING! (and is already finished heh). Every recipe I have tried from your blog has been delicious, thank you so much for sharing your recipes with us!

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  31. Aww, thanks so much Lucy-Mae, that's lovely! So glad you liked it :-) ♥

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  32. This looks fantastic! Just wondering if I could use soya cream in the ganache instead of oat cream or would this not work as well?

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    1. Thanks! That is absolutely fine, in fact I use soy cream all the time now when I make this ganache, I'll update the post, thanks! Hope you like it :-)

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  33. Made it! Thanks a lot :)
    http://i44.tinypic.com/6gwwgk.jpg
    I've been making wacky cake for some time now but this recipe is probably better than my usual. Very moist, not too sweet a bit fragile though.
    Next time I'll try your vanilla cake with raspberry mousse. I've been looking for good vanilla/yellow cake recipe forever. Thanks again for sharing the recipes :)

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    1. That's great! Glad it worked out for you, hope you like the vanilla cake too :-) Thanks for the comment!

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  34. This cake looks amazing and yummy.

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  35. This looks amazing, such a good idea assembling it in the cake tin! Going to attempt this sometime during the week - will let you know how it goes! Wish me luck!

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    1. Thanks! Sorry for the late posting of your comment here, hope it worked out for you if you've had a chance to make it!

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  36. I've looked all over for a tall springform cake pan. Where in the world did you find yours? What's the brand?
    Your cake looks gorgeous, by the way!


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    1. Hi, thanks so much for the comment! I'm actually in hospital right now, been here since Monday so can't check my pan but it was one I just picked up in the grocery store (Tesco)

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    2. ...so it may have been an own label brand. You could use one without a removable bottom as long as you use extra strong cling film to pull it out. You could also assemble it on a plate using thick acetone sheets (used in chocolate making) to wrap around the cake and hold the mousse in. Hope you find something suitable!

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  37. Dear Debbie, thank you for the great recipe! Just a quick question: did you chill you whipping cream in the fridge before whisking it? I used Soyatoo soy cream which was chilled, and then I put the melted chocolate to the fridge

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  38. It resulted in a stiff mousse, which I had to spread with my fingers. I guess I understood it wrong?

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    1. Hi! Thanks for the question....I do chill the whipping cream in the fridge before whisking but the melted chocolate doesn't go in the fridge. You just let it get to room temperature so you're not whisking warm chocolate into cold cream as that would cause the chocolate to seize up. I'm guessing that's maybe what went wrong here? The mousse should be really light and fluffy....sorry if there was some confusion there! Hope it was still enjoyed :-)

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