A Princess enters her teens with a Mocha Mousse Meringue Cake

My little princess turns 13!

The 17th of February 2017 was the date my little Princess turned 13 and she is certainly not little any more. Being a school day, we woke her early and as usual we hid her presents under the bed.






This year she got a Puma Hoodie, two personalised Arsenal Mugs and two T-shirts. The mugs were ordered from Photobook and as there was a special for two mugs, I designed two different mugs. She was delighted with the mugs but remarked that it may have been better if I hadn't personalised it with her name as that would look more authentic - as if it really came from Emirates Stadium! Nonetheless, she was delighted with her two mugs as well as the Puma hoodie and t-shirts.

Although she is in afternoon school for Form One, she had to go in for the morning session today as there was a farewell for one of the teachers. So it was a bit of a rush to get both her and her brother off to school in the morning. Later at night, we bought some of her favourite Chinese Fried Rice from the shop in Bangsar (Vincent) and had dinner at my Mom-in-Laws before coming home to cut her cake.




I had made the cake on Thursday night and had spent a considerable amount of time trying to decide what to make her. She had said she would like a dessert cake and preferably something new that I hadn't made before. She likes anything chocolate. She also likes anything sour. I contemplated making a lemon cake but thought that would be too simple. Then I thought of a lemon meringue cake - something like a lemon meringue pie. However I wasn't sure whether all of us would enjoy it enough to finish a whole cake. Orange Chocolate mousse cake....orange cake with choc ganache....Sacher Torte.....Coffee Cake..... Mocha Mousse Cake......hmmm.

Mocha Pudding

A few weeks ago, I had promised the kids that I would make them a nice dessert, something chocolatey and pudding-like. They were rather excited and they asked if I could make them something Mocha instead. Mocha has become the flavour of the month with the kids and truth be told, they like little sips of coffee as well!
I had planned to make it one weekend but then the 'lazy monster' took over and I apologised to the kids and said that I would make it another day.

A few days later, I took the kids out for dessert as The Lovely Wife had a dinner date with some friends. We ended up going to TGIF and wanted their Mocha Mud Pie but as luck would have it, they were out. They had something called Mini Delights which were actually a variety of small puddings served in shot glasses. I told my kids not to bother with them as firstly, the servings were too small and secondly, I could probably make something better. They both agreed and we ended up just having the Sundae which I have to say was pretty darned disappointing. As we left the restaurant, they both asked me if I would make them the puddings that I had promised soon and I promised I would.



I was actually going to modify the tried and tested Chocolate Pastry Cream Recipe from a previous Daring Bakers challenge. Or maybe even the Chocolate Custard recipe from my Chocolate Trifle.

The issue that I had with both those recipes was that they both needed egg yolks and I didn't want to waste the whites. So I surfed the web and found this recipe that used Whole eggs for the custard! I've never used whole eggs for custards or custard like puddings and I was a little worried how it would turn out.



I modified the recipe slightly and this is what I came up with:

Ingredients
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 2Tbsp coffee powder
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 3Tbsp cornstarch
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 Tbsp. cocoa powder
• 3 large eggs
• 100g. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Method

Combine milk, coffee and heavy cream in a heavy, medium saucepan and heat up to just under a boil. Meanwhile in mixing bowl combine cornstarch and sugar and sift in cocoa powder. Whisk until blended. In another mixing bowl, whisk egg until blended, then add to sugar mixture and whisk until well combined.

Slowly add half the hot milk mixture to egg mixture to temper it while whisking continuously. Pour egg mixture back into pan with rest of the milk mixture and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until mixture has become very thick . This should take about 7 minutes, depending on how cold your eggs are.

Remove from the heat and add in the chocolate and let heat of the custard mixture melt it. When the chocolate has melted, whisk together until smooth. Spoon the custard into cups right away and then chill for several hours.

I took a leaf out of the TGIF Menu and chopped some Snickers Bars and added them to the top of the pudding as a garnish. This gave the dessert and extra bite, a bit of crunch and more of a yummy factor.



The top of the custard formed a little bit of a skin the longer it stayed in the fridge but the Snickers on top more than disguised that. It was kind of nice to have a bit of a thicker top as well.


The verdict? The kids loved it! They liked the fact that the coffee wasn't overpowering and that the coffee flavour was more of an undertone and more noticeable as an aftertaste.



Both the kids had two servings at one go and then looked forward to having the dessert at every meal till there was no more. After the last one was finished, both of them looked at me and asked if there was any more. When the reply came that everything had been polished off, they immediately asked when I was going to make this again!

080808 and a Mocha Biscuit Pudding

Before I start this post, I just want to recognise that today is the 8th of August 2008. It is thus the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, that I understand is going to start sharp at 8:08 pm. So, in commemoration of the fascination with the number 8, I have also scheduled my post to be posted at 8:08pm on the 080808 - although in Malaysia we would write it as 8/8/08 and to complicate things further, since the Y2K 'problem' I tend to write dates in full so i would write it as 8 August 2008, just to minimise any ambiguity.

So anyway, so much for dates. On to the Dessert!




My son has developed a taste for Mocha. Yes, and coffee too! Before anyone starts screaming at me for letting a 7 year old have coffee - its usually just a teeny tiny sip. More often than not its in a kind of mocha drink too. He loves it! Anyway, anything in moderation is okay in my books.

So one day back in early July, when I had some leftover cream that had to be used up in a hurry, I decided I would make a quick and easy dessert that was - you guessed it - Mocha Flavoured!

The idea from this comes from eating cookies with ice cream. Except, intstead of using ice cream, I make a soft whip and then dollop it over some cookies.

This is what I did.

Ingredients
600ml cream
250gm block chocolate with whole Almonds
1-2 tbsp instant coffee powder
a little milk
Choc Chip Cookies

method
Break the chocolate and place in a large bowl. Bring the cream to boil and then pour over the Chocolate. Stir well till chocolate is completely melted. Strain into another bowl with a wire mesh to strain out the almonds. Set the almonds aside and add the instant coffee powder to the hot chocolate mixture. Mix well and let the chocolate ganache cool.
Whip the chocolate ganache until soft peaks form. Chill in fridge until ready to use. To serve, dip a choc chip cookie in a little milk and then place into a bowl. Spoon over with chocolate ganache and garnish with an almond.



The taste and look of this recipe belies how easy it is to make. It was simply delicious and my son polished off two bowls.



I wont tell you how many bowls I polished off myself!