Strawberry Chocolate Mousse Cake (Eggless)

We celebrated our 5th anniversary last month. 5 years sounds like such a long time and yet I remember all the details of our wedding like it were only yesterday. I guess we never forget our most special moments:). Manoj surprised me with the best gift ever, my first SLR!! God, I screamed so loud and it was midnight, I'm sure I scared some neighbours:). I can finally stop borrowing from my neighbor!!

 I had friends coming over in the evening, there was dinner to prepare and so much more to do, but all I wanted to do was play with my new toy :). Ironically I was so busy until the last moment, I couldn't click any pictures of the food. Thankfully the cake was made the previous night and the first thing I did in the morning was take pictures of it.

I have been thinking of making a mousse cake for such a long time now. It had to be eggless (a jain couple among friends). I wanted to go chocolate as usual, but another friend is not a fan of chocolate (I know, Incomprehensible!!!) and is always disappointed when it comes to desserts at our home. So I went with strawberry for her and to make me happy I added a thin layer of bittersweet chocolate mousse in the middle. For the cake base, I made a strawberry version of the custard powder snack cake I posted before this. I used strawberry custard powder, the cake had only a slight strawberry flavor, but yummy, and the color was what got me excited...such a beautiful pink!! Since the cake will be refrigerated, it has to be soaked really well with syrup. Some parts of my cake were not soaked that well, so was a little firm for a  mousse cake, so be really generous with the syrup! The end result was one fabulous and delicious dessert, all gone by the end of the evening, except for one slice I saved for a picture.

Eggless Strawberry Mousse Cake

Ingredients:
Cake:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup strawberry flavored custard powder
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
150 gm butter (very soft)
1 cup milk

Strawberry Mousse:
16 oz strawberries, washed and hulled or use frozen
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 tbs gelatin
2 cups heavy cream

Bittersweet Chocolate Mousse:
5 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small chunks
3/4 cup cream
1/2 tsp gelatin
1 tbs water

Simple Syrup:
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar

Strawberries - washed, hulled and sliced for decoration
Some melted chocolate for drizzling

Method:

Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350F/ 180C. Grease and line a 9" round spring form pan.

Whisk all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add the vanilla, milk and butter and mix until smooth.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake till done, about 35-40 minutes.

Cool in the pan for 10 mins and then remove onto a wire rack to cool completely.

It's best to bake the cake a few hours or even a day in advance. Wrap the cooled cake well in saran wrap and store in the fridge.

Simple Syrup:

Heat the sugar and water on medium heat, just until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and cool the syrup.

Chocolate Mousse:

Take 1 tbs water in a small bowl and sprinkle gelatin over it. Keep aside to soften. Heat 1/4 cup of cream till it just begins to boil. Pour over the chocolate. Mix well, if the chocolate has not melted completely heat for a few seconds in the microwave. Mix well till smooth and lump free.

Heat the bowl of gelatin over a double boiler till the mixture is transparent and the gelatin has completely dissolved. Add it to the chocolate mixture and stir well. Keep aside and let it come to room temperature. Do not let it set.

Whip the remaining cream till it just begins to hold soft peaks. Add 1/3 of the whipped cream to the cooled chocolate and whisk gently to lighten the mixture. Gently fold in the remaining whipped cream.

Strawberry Mousse:

Wash and hull the strawberries. Heat the strawberries and sugar in a pan, until the fruit has broken down and the sugar has dissolved. Strain the mixture to remove the seeds and pulp and return to a clean sauce pan. Add the gelatin to the strawberry sauce and heat until the gelatin has dissolved. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Whip the cream till it just begins to hold soft peaks (do not over whip). Fold in the cooled strawberry mixture gently into the whipped cream.

Assembling the cake:

Level the top of the cake. Spray the cake with syrup or spoon the syrup on the cake until it is moist, but it should bot fall apart. The cake should feel very moist. Place the cake inside the spring form pan that it was baked in.

Keep the strawberry slices along the sides of the pan. Spoon the chocolate mousse over the cake and spread it to form an even layer. Cover the pan with a saran wrap and refrigerate while you make the strawberry mousse.

Spoon the strawberry mousse evenly over the chocolate layer. Drizzle some melted chocolate over the mousse. Again wrap the pan with the plastic wrap and refrigerate till set, about 4-5 hours. Carefully run a paring knife along the sides of the pan to remove the cake. Enjoy your fabulous dessert. The cake can be stored covered in the fridge for upto 2 days.

Chocolate mousse recipe from here and Strawberry Mousse recipe from here.

Sending this to  Cakes for Christmas, Let's Cook-Baked Goodies, Christmas NewYear's Eve 2011, Global Food Festival, Bake Fest, Only Cookies and Cakes, Serve it Baked Sweet, Jingle All the Way, Sinful Delights.