Alice’s Chocolate Mousse Cake with Cajeta!

I made this dessert as an assignment for Target. The store where I buy everything from school supplies to Riedel wine glasses. My friend Betsy Nelson is a food stylist for Target and she asked me to do some of the baking for a photo shoot. As inspiration she brought over the book Bittersweet by Alice Medrich to show me the style of cake they were going for. The thing I love most about working with Betsy is that she’s a chef and insists the food not only be gorgeous for the photo, but delicious enough to eat after the shot is done. I made a large version of the cake for Target, but couldn’t resist using the leftovers to create individual cakes for my own pleasure, pairing it with a rich cajeta and freshly grated nutmeg.

Fast forward a couple of days and I’m at the BlogherFood conference in San Francisco. I met so many people I admire and who have inspired me as a chef and a blogger. It was incredible to put faces, voices and laughter to the people I’ve known only virtually. I promise I will get back to the cake, but let me just spend a second introducing you to just a few of the fabulous folks I met. Helen from the exquisite site Tartelette, Diane and Todd from White on Rice Couple (who gave me a much needed photo lesson during the cocktail party), Shauna, Danny and Lucy from Gluten-Free Girl, Tea from Tea and Cookies, Elise from Simply Recipes, Ree from The Pioneer Woman Cooks, Jaden of The Steamy Kitchen, Heidi from 101 cookbooks, all generously willing to share their experiences and secrets to their success.  The reason I brought up BlogherFood in this post is because I also met Alice Medrich, the “First Lady of Chocolate” at the after party hosted by Elise, Ree and Jaden. Alice is a true master of her craft and I have considered her one of my pastry mentors. Here are her wonderfully smooth and perfectly simple mousse recipes, the key to success is really fine chocolate.

The winner of the Aebleskiver Package is at the end of the post.

Makes about 10 individual or 1 8-inch cake:

Graham Cracker Crust (Betsy wanted to a Graham crust to fit in with the caramel colored theme of the Target photo and I’m so glad she did. It added a wonderful texture and flavor to the cake):

11 graham crackers

3 tablespoons brown sugar

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch salt

Alice Medrich’s Mousse Cake from Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate:

Gianduja Mousse layer:

9 ounces Gianduja or Milk Chocolate, finely chopped (Gianduja is a combination of milk chocolate and hazelnut paste – think nutella) I used Gianduja from Cacao Barry

6 tablespoons water (or half water and half eau-de-vie, brandy, or other liqueur)

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

White Chocolate Mousse layer:

9 ounces White Chocolate, finely chopped

6 tablespoons water (or half water and half eau-de-vie, brandy, or other liqueur)

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

Cajeta – a rich Mexican caramel made with goats milk. It is fantastic with the chocolate but also a natural fit with apples or coffee ice cream. I put the pot of cajeta on the table and let people add as much as they liked.

1 cup heavy whipping cream, whipped softly for garnish

Nutmeg, freshly grated for garnish

To start you will need to set up 10-12 3-inch mousse ring molds with acetate on a parchment lined cookie sheet. (The ring molds I have are fashioned out of PVC pipe. They were made by the plumber who built the kitchen in a restaurant I worked in. If you know a plumber or just someone who is handy, you can make your own.)

To make the Graham Cracker Crust: Place the Graham crackers in a food processor, pulse until fine crumbs. Add the brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and salt. Pulse until the crumbs are evenly coated with the butter.

Distribute the Graham cracker crust into the ring molds so that they are about 1/4-inch thick. Pack it into the mold, I used a marble pestle. Refrigerate to set the crust, while you prepare the first mousse recipe.

To make the mousse: The gianduja and the white chocolate mousses are prepared in exactly the same way. make the gianduja first.

Place the gianduja chocolate and water in a heatproof bowl. Set it over a double boiler with gently simmering water under it. Immediately turn off the heat and allow the residual heat to melt the chocolate, stirring gently until it is completly melted and smooth. Remove from double boiler and allow to cool to just above room temperature. Whip the cream to a very soft peak, it should just barely hold its shape, almost pourable.

Fold the cream into the chocolate, it will be quite soft, seemingly too soft, but it will set up in the refrigerator. Allow this layer to set for about 20-30 minutes before beginning the white chocolate layer. This will give you time to clean all your bowls and beaters.

Once the gianduja layer is somewhat set, repeat the directions but this time using the white chocolate.

Allow them to set at least a couple of hours or overnight. If leaving them overnight, be sure to cover them with plastic wrap so they don’t develop a skin on the top.

Unmold the mousse cakes, top them with the soft whipped cream, a drizzle of cajeta and grate a touch of nutmeg over the top. Absolutely indulgent!

This was the plate right before I licked it clean!

Aebleskiver Package Winner: First I want to thank you all again for the wonderful Aebleskiver ideas. You came up with sweet (chocolate and nutella the most popular additions) and savory (bacon wins) fillings that I’m really excited to try.Thanks to Nick and Carolyn for sharing their Aebleskiver batter recipes with us. Congratulations to Jaime from Sophistimom who was the random winner of the Aunt Else’s Aebleskiver package! Her idea was superb as well, she wants to make a buckwheat batter and then have a center of caviar. Oh my, I do hope that she will try it and post for us all to see! For those of you who didn’t win Aunt Else’s has a special on the 9-hole pans right now, just in time for the holdiays!

Tagged as: Blogher, BlogherFood, cajeta, Food Bloggers, gianduja mousse, graham cracker crust, milk chocolate mousse, mousse cake, white chocolate mousse