11 year old Princess with a Salted Caramel Chocolate Mousse Cake

So my princess turned 11 today, the 17th of February 2015! As per the practice over the years, we placed her presents under the bed and then woke her up.



It was a school day for her today while her brother Michael started the school break for Chinese New Year. She gets tomorrow until the end of the week and also the next Monday off.

She got a few presents from us starting with an Adidas T-shirt. My princess loves games that you play together and with that in mind we got her a board game called You are Sentenced, a small dice game and finally an Electronics Lab that lets you build 130 different circuits to build timers, make make sounds, flashing lights and other electronic gizmos - supposedly even an AM Radio!

She seemed quite please with the presents and with the presents out of the way, she got ready and went off to school. I had to go to work but after school she was taken for lunch at Chillis with Mummy, Mike and Amma. My wife's brother and family went for lunch too.


Later in the evening, my parents visited and we went out for dinner. Sarah wanted Japanese so we went to Rakuzen at Sri Hartamas. She enjoyed a Sushi and Tempura bento while Michael went for the Unagi Rice Bento. Mummy had a Teriyaki Cod while my parents shared a Beef dish. I had a Beef Teppanyaki and we all shared a Grilled Salmon head. I had told the restaurant manager that we were celebrating Sarahs birthday and they gave us a complimentary dessert - Japanese ice cream wrapped in some kind of waffle covering. Rather tasty!

After dinner we returned home to cut her cake that I had made the night before.





I had asked her before her birthday what cake she wanted me to make but she wasn't really sure. She asked me for options and I suggested a Salted Caramel Chocolate Mousse cake and she seemed game so that is what I decided I would make.



For the cake, I adapted various recipes. I started off with the base of a Chocolate Genoise that I have used before. It comes from the Le Cordon Chocolate cookbook. Next, I adapted Jamie Oliver's recipe for Salted Caramel although I added a bit more cream since I felt it was way too thick and hardened too quickly once cool. For the chocolate mousse, I adapted the chocolate mousse from my friend Deeba's Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake although I left out the coffee and I also changed the method a little.

I baked the cake in an 9" Pan but then used a 10" ring mould so the cake had to be flattened slightly. I should have just stuck to using my 9" or 8" springform the the whole cake but I wanted to place the cake on a cakeboard...

Salted caramel
Ingredients
200g sugar
100ml whipping cream
50g butter, cubed
½ tsp sea salt or salt crystals

Place the sugar in a large saucepan with 50ml water. Gently heat on low, swirling the pan but not stirring, until just melted. (Don’t let children do this.) Turn up the heat a little and simmer gently, swirling regularly, until you have a clear, very dark golden caramel. Remove the pan from the heat then carefully and quickly whisk in the cream and butter. It will splutter a bit, but don’t worry about that. Keep whisking and beating until smooth, then beat in the salt. Let cool. If making the caramel in advance, keep it chilled but bring back to room temperature before using.



Sugar syrup
Ingredients
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Method
Heat all ingredients together till sugar is dissolved. Set aside

Dark chocolate mousse
Ingredients
300g dark couverture chocolate {70%}
400ml whipping cream
1.5 tsp gelatine sprinkled over 25ml water
100g brown sugar

Method

In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatine over the water and leave until spongy. Place bowl in another bowl filled halfway with warm water and leave until the gelatine dissolves and is clear.
Place the chocolate and 100ml cream in a large bowl together with the sugar and melt over a double boiler or in microwave until almost melted. Take off heat and whisk until smooth, then whisk in gelatine. Leave the chocolate to cool to room temperature.
Meanwhile whip the remaining cream until medium stiff peaks. Fold 2 tbsp through chocolate to loosen it a bit. Then fold in the remaining chocolate gently.


Chocolate Genoise
Ingredients

4 Eggs
100g Caster Sugar
80g Plain flour
2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
20g Butter, melted

Method
To make the sponge: preheat the oven to 180C. Butter and flour a 8 inch springform pan. Half fill a saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Remove from heat. Put the eggs and sugar into a large heatproof bowl and place over the saucepan making sure it is not touching the water. Using electric beaters, whisk for 5-10 minutes until the mixture is thick and light, has doubled in volume and leaves a trail as it falls from the beaters. The temperature of the mixture should never be hot, only warm. Remove the bowl from the pan of water and continue to beat until cold. Sift the flour and cocoa together and carefully fold into the whisked mixture with a large metal spoon until just combined. Stop folding as soon as flour and cocoa are combined or mixture will lose its volume. Gently but quickly fold in the warm butter. Pour the mixture into the tin and gently smooth the top with the back of the spoon. Bake on the middle shelf of oven for about 25-30 minutes or until springy and shrinking from the sides of the tin. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Clean the cake tin so it is ready to use later.



Assembly
Cut the cake in half. Spread with sugar syrup and cover with half the mousse. top with remaining cake and cover with remaining mousse. Drizzle half of the salted caramel on top and allow to set in the fridge. Before serving, heat the caramel and serve as a sauce topping.

The cake turned out really well and the salted caramel drizzled over the cake initially had set to lend a little bit of a crunch. The caramel poured over each slice added a nice contrasting flavour. It was really quite amazing how the salt brought out the flavour of the caramel and also the dark chocolate.



TLW and the kids thought that the cake was pretty good but the next day they declared that the cake was actually quite fabulous! Apparently they were too full the previous night to truly appreciate the cake and the subtle flavours.

So another birthday and another successful birthday cake which means another cake to add to the repertoire. My princess is certainly growing up very fast!

Happy Birthday Sarah!