A Cake for my Mother – Baked Choc Mousse Upside Down Cake

Both my mother and my father are the same age with my father born exactly a week before my mother. While my Dad likes to celebrate events with aplomb, my Mom is more the quiet kind who prefers a minimum of fuss and is more than happy to celebrate her birthday quietly at home with the immediate family.

That was exactly what we did for her 75th Birthday on the 13th on January 2010. The family gathered together at mom and dad’s place for a pot luck dinner. Some food was cooked and some was bought. On the menu was Tandoori Chicken, Satay, Hokkien Mee, Chicken Curry, Sambar, Kai Lan and Rice. My contribution was a cake for Mom.

I wasn’t sure what cake to make for her but I knew it had to have some element of chocolate in it. I also wanted something relatively quick and easy since I would need to make the cake after work. I decided on a slightly modified version of my Baked Chocolate Mousse.



The last time I made this, I neglected to line the tin and so this time I did. This time I also added a teaspoon of baking powder to see if the mixture rose more. I also didn’t use a water bath this time around. I don’t think there was much of a difference either way. One big change that I did was to add almond flakes to the bottom of the pan. I knew that I wanted the bottom of the cake to be the top and I figured it would be a good idea to have almonds embedded all over the top. So I guess this makes it a little bit of an upside down cake!

For decorations, I made a strawberry rosette by placing a whole strawberry in the centre and thin slices around it. I used the leftover sugarpaste letters from my fathers 75th cake to spell out he words Happy Birthday Amma.

We actually used 7 large and 5 small candles for the cake to signify 75 and it blazed up quite nicely!



Everyone enjoyed the cake and most of all, Mom was very happy!

It's kind of hard to imagine that both my parents are 75 years old. That only means that I am getting along in age as well. I'm just glad that I've been able to bake cakes for them to enjoy and in some small way, give them something back for all they have done and continue to do for me and the rest of the family.



Happy Birthday Amma!