Pages

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Chocolate Chesnut Mousse Cake - Mousse Cake #2



I made this cake and sent it over to my SIL's in-laws (my hubby's sister's in-laws). We are in good relations with them and they always send us good free range chicken or river caught snakeheads. Well, I could only return them with bakes and Chinese New Year is always the time of gifting. They told me it tasted like cheesecake and they loved it.





Few days later I made this again for my dessert loving friends who came to my house for Chinese New Year 2012. This was served the same day as the beef stew. They told me, each time dessert is always the one they look forward to when they come eating at my place. LOL. Most loved it and a few told me they still prefer butter cake (these were said by males!)

Year end is always a good time for chestnuts. If you don't want to roast your own, buy those pre roasted in packs, easily available in supermarkets costing around RM3.50 per pack. If you can get small one from Daiso, even better. Those taste nuttier, but stocks in Daiso changes all the time. See here to see different packagings of affordable roasted chestnut.

Martha's recipe assembled the cake upside down whereas I did it the upright way. It's up to you on how to do it,


Chocolate Chestnut Mousse Cake
Recipe from Martha Stewart with some modifications

225gm peeled roasted chestnuts
250gm fresh milk
50gm light-brown sugar
Pinch of salt
3 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1.5 Tbsp gelatin + 60gm water, melted
60gm bittersweet chocolate (preferably 61 percent cacao), melted and very slightly warm
300gm cold whipping cream
100gm Oreo cookies
Oreo halves (as needed)

Topping
100gm whipping cream
1/2 tsp gelatin + 1 Tbsp water, melted
dark chocolate shavings

1. Prepare an 8 inch pan with removable base. Line the sides with plastic cake dividers or non stick baking paper or strips of aluminium foil. (I set mine directly onto the cake board)
2. Take 100gm of oreo (with cream) and pulverize. Spread the oreo crumbs into prepared pan. Press and compact it. Cover and freeze until needed
3. Grind chestnuts finely.
4. In a 4-cup (or larger) capacity bowl, whisk yolks,sugar and cornstarch.
5. Bring milk to boil and pour into (4), whisking all the while (prevent yolks from cooking in lumps). Pour this mixture back into the pot.
6. Put in milled chestnuts. (If it doesn't look fine enough, blend it finely with an immersion blender at this point together with all the runny liquids). Cook on medium low heat until it thickens. Mix in vanilla. Leave it to cool down (or beat it with mixer until it cools down)
7. At this point, prepare your melted gelatin and melted chocolate.
8. When the chestnut paste has cooled down, whip cream until almost stiff and then put in melted gelatin and whip until stiff.
9. Fold 1/3 of the cream into chestnut paste. Then pour the lightened chesnut paste into the whipping cream and fold until well combined.
10. Divide the chestnut mousse into 2. Pour one part into the prepared pan. Level it and top with oreo halves. (Put into the freezer as you do the next step)
11. Fold the balance of mousse with the slightly warm chocolate. Very gently pour this into the pan over the oreo halves.
12. Chill for 5 hours minimum. Remove from pan and place cake on serving platter. Peel the strips off the side of cake. Keep chilled as you do the next step.
13. Whip 100gm of cream until you can see streaks and put in 1Tbsp of sugar. Whisk until almost stiff and add in melted gelatin. Whisk until stiff and spread this onto the cake.
14. Sprinkle with chocolate shavings and keep chilled until time to serve.




20 comments:

  1. Wendy, the cake is very beautiful, chestnut cake is another one that I always wanted to try out, bookmark this for one of the birthday cake :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gorgeous! I would love this cake a lot and a lot and a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jess,
    Plus ur fav oreos, kekeke.


    Phong Hong,
    Now chestnnuts are berlambak lambak around leh

    ReplyDelete
  4. Beautiful chocolate mousse cake!

    ReplyDelete
  5. alamak....today everyone pakat post up cake post ka? All cakes so delicious looking one....die la me

    ReplyDelete
  6. wendy,
    step 8: whip the cream on top of the ice water?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Nice! Yah I really think guys = butter cakes. Hubby can't appreciate chiffon but give him super buttery cakes in any form, he likes.

    ReplyDelete
  8. mel,
    thanks


    Small kucing,
    see only no gain weight la, haha


    MK Moon,
    No I don't. I just use a chilled glass bowl


    Ronni,
    LOL, quite the norm, right? LOL
    My hubby still likes chiffon, but not 'pudding' cakes,those gelatin set cakes, he's not very into them. But cream cakes, ok

    ReplyDelete
  9. Owh my! This is gorgeous..I don't mind if anyone parcel me this cake...:)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Looks very beautiful ! Wonder how the chestnuts taste in cake :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Wendy ,
    As usual ,it's nice & perfect!

    ReplyDelete
  12. So beautiful. Hw do you do the chocolate shavings? I could never get it to such width. Mine turned out like little worms.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Wendy,
    This is a very lovely cake. Simple decorations but yet so pretty. I never tasted a chestnut cake before.
    Bookmarked this..:D

    mui..^^

    ReplyDelete
  14. Gorgeous chocolate curls! I can imagine this to be rich and decadent!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Looks amazing!
    Is this cake very sweet or is the sugar content adapted for Chinese palates?
    Am thinking making this for a family Christmas dessert. :)
    My mum loves chestnuts ( but alas is now diabetic) and my 2 year old son is a chocoholic who loves oreo cookies!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Wow! I can't resist the temptation!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Plum Leaf,
    It's only 50gm sugar in the cake, but you can taste as you go, add more if you think it's needed or less, cos the sugar is cooked, can taste as you go.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Just found your blog and LOOOOOVE everything about it! Thanks so much for sharing. This cake looks gorgeous! Mind sharing how you did the choc curls and what choc you used? Thanks again!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Pinky Sade,
    Beryls Dark Compound Chocolate at room temperature shaved with a vegetable peeler :)

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thank you so much for your reply, Wendy! I amazed with your blog posts and can't wait to read them all!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for dropping by my blog.
All comments are greatly appreciated.

If you have tried any of the recipes and blogged about it, please provide a link so that others may have a look at it too :)

FOR NON BLOGGERS:
Please select profile and click "Name/URL" if u do not have any profiles on any of those listed, type in the name (leave the URL empty)

It's not nice to call you ANONYMOUS, so please leave a name.
From 15/11/13 onwards, I will NOT reply comments with no name.

Only comments on posts older than 24 hours will be moderated :)
You won't see them appearing immediately if it's not a fresh post.