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.

Chocolate Mousse Royale Ice Cream Cake for a 14th Birthday

Ahh, how time flies. My little boy is no longer a boy and is now a 14 year old young man! His birthday this year fell on a Sunday and we started the day off by going to church. We were running a little late so we didnt wake him up to open his presents as we usually do. I managed to quickly place his presents under the bed just as he left his room and then we went back in and wished him.

He got a Chelsea t-shirt and a lego mini figure. We were supposed to get him a pair of sneakers that he wanted but there wasnt time to go shopping so hopefully we can go get it soon. After church we went for lunch the grandparents and then headed home to cut the cake.

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.

11 Years old today with a Chocolate Awesomeness Cake

I know its been a while since I updated this blog with any recipes so I suppose it's kind of fitting that this latest update is about my son's 11th Birthday! It was kinda fortunate that his birthday fell on a Public Holiday today so we were able to stay at home with him and also invited the family over for a Birthday Lunch. My parents were away in Melbourne while my brother and his daughters were in Gold Coast so that meant slightly fewer people. Still, there were about 15 odd people invited!

As per the tradition in this household, we woke my son up after hiding his presents under the bed. My little princess had 'camped' on the floor in his room the previous night too!



For his birthday this year, he got a replica Chelsea jersey and also a table football game - Subbuteo - something that Dads had always wanted when he was young as well! It didnt take long for both the kids to test out the game.


The Lovely Wife, together with help from her Mom, did their magic and whipped up the lunch spread. For lunch there was Stewed Pork (Tau Yew Bak) with Man Tau buns;



Fried Prawns, Chicken Curry,




Yoghurt Curry (Mohr Curry) Mixed Vegetables,




Vegetable Accar (Pickles) and Onion Rice.



Quite a fancy little spread if you ask me! My contribution as usual was dessert and the Birthday Cake.

My son had asked for a different cake, something that would be really nice but also chocolatey. He especially liked the Chocolate Truffle Torte that I had made for Christmas last year so I decided to adapt that recipe and make something completely new.

Actually, for this cake, I adapted various different recipes and components that I had made before to assemble this cake. I used the tried and tested Cake Boss Sponge recipe that I have grown to love as the base. I modified my Tiramisu soaking syrup to make it less coffee flavoured. I used the Praline Feulletine component of the Le Kit Kat cake inspired by Michel Richard and adapted the Truffle from the Chocolate Truffle Torte to assemble this cake.

Pear and Chocolate Mousse Cake

Not too long ago, actually it could be sometime in May, so that makes it quite some time ago, I made this dessert for a couple of friends that came over for tea and good conversation. Lynn brought along a lovely salad while the delectable Ms Kong Piang brought along a team smoked trout that was rather delicious. She also mentioned that she hadn't had a nice dessert in a while and that all the stuff she had been 'forced' to eat was really not worth her time. Ms Kong Piang often repeats that same story to me just to get me to make her desserts. *Yawn*

So anyway, not wanting to disappoint neither Ms Kong Piang nor Lynn, I decided I was going to make something different. Something chocolatey yet fruity. The Lovely Wife kept bugging me as to what I was going to make but I hushed her up. Very politely too!

In my mind, I wanted a chocolate cake with a pear mousse on top. I surfed the web for a Pear Mousse recipe and found this recipe from cdkitchen.com reproduced below.

For the cake, I decided on using my Baked Chocolate Mousse as I wanted a nicer soft texture.

While I was baking the mousse, I decided to make a cinnamon sauce to complement the pear mousse.

Ingredients
PEAR MOUSSE
3 large pears
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup brandy
1 cup Whipping cream


Method
Peel and core pears and chop coarsely. Place pears in pot with sugar and butter and lemon juice and cook and stir over low heat 15 to 20 minutes.

Let cool slightly and place in blender and puree smooth. Add the brandy and mix well. Cool completely.

Whip heavy cream and blend into cooled pear mixture. Chill well for several hours.


BAKED CHOC MOUSSE CAKE
200g Good Quality Dark Chocolate
4 eggs
200g Caster Sugar
300 ml Thickenend Cream
3 Tbsps Corn Flour

Method
Melt the chocolate over a double boiler and let cool. Meanwhile, beat eggs with sugar till nice and foamy. Add in the melted chocolate and continue beating till nicely incorporated. In a separate bowl, whip cream to soft peaks. Fold into the chocolate mixture and then add in sifted corn flour. Mix well to incorporate. Pour into a 9" round pan and place in a water bath. Bake in 180C oven for about 30 minutes.

Caramel Cinnamon Sauce
5 Tbsp Sugar
2 Tbs Water
1 Tbsp Butter
about 1/2 cup cream or milk
2 - 3 tsps Cinnamon powder (to your taste)

Method
Melting the sugar and water and allow to cook without stirring till the sugar turns amber. Turn add in the butter and stir quickly. Mixture may sputter. Reduce heat and allow to cool slightly before adding in the milk/cream. Return to heat and whisk until everything combines and mixture is nice and thick. Add in the cinnamon powder to taste.

Before serving, I dusted the top of the pear mousse with some cinnamon powder for those that didnt want to eat it with the caramel cinnamon sauce. The cinnamon really did make a difference and seemed to bring out the flavour of the pears.




The pear mousse turned out really nicely although if I make this again, I would let the pears mixture thicken some more as the mousse took a long, long time to set. In fact, even after being in the freezer overnight, the mousse melted very quickly. However the next day, the mousse had set up very, very nicely as you can see above.



The mousse was great as a dessert on its own too - especially with the caramel cinnamon sauce! Ms Kong Piang remarked that it would make a very good ice cream.




The combination of the pear mousse and the baked choc mousse was rather sublime and very interesting. The fruitiness of the pears combined really well with the chocolate and one slice was definitely not enough. This is the kind of dessert that you can just eat and eat... and that's exactly what we did!

Festmahl Kuchen - a cake fit for a feast

In my previous post, I mentioned how Lynn's request made me decide to make Quinoa Stuffed Peppers for the dinner we had with friends prior to watching the World Cup Quarterfinals. The ever discerning Ms Kong Piang yawned in her royal manner and declared that she was tired of purchasing substandard desserts and wanted something that would "hit the right spots." She waxed lyrical about something fruity then pondered upon something chocolatey before she dismissed everything and just 'demanded' something that would satisfy her. Kind of like Jean-Luc Picard saying "Make it so". (For those of you not from the same generation or wavelength, Picard is the Captain of the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, The Next Generation)

Anyway, I'm quite frightened of Ms Kong Piang . She has such discerning taste and is a fabulous cook in her own right that I would have to think of something that would match her expectations. Same goes for TLW as well as Lynn!

Having 3 gorgoeus women expecting satisfaction from one man may not be such a dream after all... Women with discerning palates are not to be trifled with. Be afraid. Be very afraid.





TLW kept asking me what I was going to make but I knew it would be better if I surprised her. I decided on a dessert with pears, chocolate mousse and a nutty base. My usual mousse uses egg whites to make it light and fluffy but I needed the egg whites for the meringue and didn't want to have leftover egg yolks. I decided to modify my Baked Chocolate Mousse. This is what I came up with, another original recipe:

Ingredients
3 Egg Whites
150g Caster Sugar
160g Ground Hazelnuts

3 egg yolks
1 Egg
2 Tbsp Sugar
200g good quality Dark Chocolate
400ml Cream
1 large can pears
Method
Start off by straining the pears. Discard the juices. Cut the pears into quarters and set aside.

Whip egg whites till at soft peak stage. Add in the sugar and continue beating till thick, stiff and glossy. Quickly fold in the nuts till well incorporated. Spread into a 10" Springform lined with parchment paper. Bake at 180C for 30-40 mins till meringue is nicely cooked. Remove from oven and let cool. Once cool, remove the parchment paper from the meringue and place the meringue back into the springorm pan, being careful not to break the meringue.

Meanwhile, Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. While chocolate is melting, whisk together the egg yolks, 1 egg and sugar together till light and creamy. Add the egg mixture into the melted chocolate, stirring quickly. Should the chocolate seize or get lumpy, dont worry. Beat with an electric mixer for a short while and chocolate will become thick and silky. Set aside.

Whip the cream till it forms stiff peaks. Carefully fold into the chocolate mixture incorporating well to get a lovely chocolate mousse.

Place a thin layer of mousse over the meringue and then arrange pear quarters over the layer of mousse. Cover the pears with remaining mousse and smoothen the top of the mousse. Bake at 190C for 25 mins. Remove from oven and let cool before allowing to chill for at least 6 hours. Decorate with sliced pears.

I was in a bit of a rush when I made this cake that I didn't remove the parchment paper from the meringue before covering it with mousse. So when I wanted to unmould the cake, I caused a bit of cracking. I've written the recipe above to make sure I dont repeat that mistake!

When I brought the cake out to be served, everyone asked what it was and it was then that I realised that I didn't have a name for it. We decided to eat it first before deciding if it was worthy to be named.



The dessert was a huge hit! Everyone enjoyed it with Ms Kong Piang saying that it was the nicest dessert she had partaken of in a while. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the mousse complemented the pears while the hazelnut meringue was much nuttier and tastier than my usual almond meringue base. Michael enjoyed it so much that he had two pieces at one sitting while the rest of us definitely had more than one serve each!

Lynn and I reckoned that we had to give the cake a Geman name to commemorate Germany's destruction of Argentina in the 2010 World Cup Quarterfinals. Since its a Chocolate Mousse Cake with Pears, I thought of calling it Schokoladenmousse Birnenkuchen - a direct translation.


Maybe Festmal Kuchen is a better and simple name for this cake as I reckon it is the perfect finale to any Feast!

Chocolate Mousse - my all time favourite dessert - with an interesting story too!

What do you do when your son looks at you sadly and asks if there is anything nice to eat?

That's exactly what happened last weekend. It was about 5 in the evening and both my son and daughter were playing while The Lovely Wife and I were watching a movie. My son suddenly looked up from his Lego's and asked.

"Is there anything nice to eat?"

The Lovely Wife told him that there was some pasta left over from lunch but that didnt seem to interest him. I then asked him if he would like some biscuits and milk but that didnt interest him either. Realising that there was still some cream that I needed to use up I offered to make him some Chocolate Mousse.

His eyes lit up and he nodded a quick "Yes Please!"







So while The Lovely Wife took the kids out to the park, I separated the eggs, melted the chocolate, whisked in the egg yolks, beat up the egg whites, whipped the cream and then folded everything together before putting it in the fridge to chill.

I have to say that I have become pretty adept at making my chocolate mousse nowadays, even though I don't make it that often. I think that has a lot to do with how far I have progressed in the kithcen. Whipping cream and beating egg whites dont frazzle me anymore nor does melting chocolate. I know what to do and what to expect so the Choc Mousse was made rather quickly - impressing The Lovely Wife as well who came back home soon after as the skies had opened and both she and the kids had to quickly come in from the rain!



I made a big tub of mousse and I also put the mousse into 4 shot glasses for the purposes of taking photos for this blog. My son couldn't wait to eat the mousse and he had a large helping immediately after dinner on Saturday night.



The next afternoon, I arranged the mousse shot glasses with some strawberries and got my son to pose for more shots. You can tell how eager he was to start eating the mousse.



We had mousse for dessert that whole weekend as well as for a morning snack, teatime and each time the kids felt like having some - and again on Monday evening!

This is my recipe that may be a little tedious to make but the result is a light, rich chocolate mousse that provides a delectable dessert after any meal! Now that I make my own, I find that the ones in restaurtants are too gelatinous, too rubbery or not chocolatey enough.

Ingredients

250 g Good Quality Dark Chocolate
300 ml Thickened Cream (Unsweetened)
1/3 cup Icing Sugar
4 eggs
1-2 tsp Rum, Brandy or Kahlua (optional)

Method
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Take care to ensure that no water gets into the chocolate or it will seize. Meanwhile, separate the eggs. Again, make sure that no water gets into the egg whites. Also make sure that no egg yolk gets into the separated whites.
Once chocolate is melted and smooth, leave on heat and quickly add in lightly beaten egg yolks a little at a time. Stir well to incorporate the eggs into the chocolate. Mixture will become slightly thick and lumpy. Remove from heat and keep stirring or beat till smooth. Let Cool
Whip cream with sugar until stiff and fluffy. If using liqueur, add into the chocolate now. Fold the chocolate mixture into the whipped cream.
Whisk egg whites until stiff. Fold in egg whites to the chocolate cream mixture. Ensure egg whites are well incorporated. Pour into a mould or a large bowl and chill in fridge for at least 4 hours

I have always been a sucker for Chocolate Mousse and would always order it at restaurants that served it. When I was about 8 or 9, my parents took us to the Equatorial Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, which used to serve these great High Teas. The dessert spread was huge and they had Chocolate Mousse served in martini glasses. That was my idea of heaven at that age!

Chocolate Mousse has remained a firm favourite for me and is probably one of my favourite desserts of all time. I played around with many different recipes and improvisations and finally achieved my own version - what I think is the perfect Mousse.


There was once, about 12 years ago (when I was still single), that I was invited for a pot luck dinner by these two gorgeous sisters. I decided to make chocolate mousse for dessert. The chocolate mousse was a great hit and as a matter of fact, both sisters described it as ‘orgasmic’! The Lovely Wife rolls her eyes every time I tell this story...but after a compliment like that, you sort of understand why I rate it as my favourite dessert - and one of my favourite stories too!

Double Chocolate Mousse Cake

This cake was made way back in August 2008 when my good friend Naomi visited for lunch. This was the dessert that I served that day and in all honesty, I have never seen a cake disappear so fast! Aside from my family, there were 4 other adults so in total that made 6 adults and 2 kids. The cake was fairly large and also rather rich and I really thought there would be plenty left over - especially since The Lovely Wife insists that I serve small slices - so people can take second serves if they like and not be forced to stuff their faces with too much cake, and end up not enjoying it. I can see some logic in her idea but to me, theres nothing wrong with a large slice of cake!!




The plan with this cake actually turned a little awry. Nonetheless, it still turned out pretty good.



This is what I did.

I made my sponge cake recipe from the Australian Women's Weekly New Cookbook (1978)which is the same recipe used for theOrange Choc Sponge Cake and also the Reverse Black Forest Cake. This sponge cake is very, very light and is great with mousse. I split the cake into four layers and then I then made two ganache 'mousses' - one with milk chocolate and the other with dark chocolate. This was done by mixing equal parts chocolate and cream and then whipping the mixture up till it became thick.

This is where the plan went awry. I wanted to cover the whole cake with a dark choc ganache but realised I had very little dark chocolate left over. So what I did was to mix a little cream with chocolate, some icing sugar and cocoa as well as some butter and I got this buttercream-ish sort of topping.
So.. one layer of sponge cake, brushed with some sugar syrup, then a layer of dark chocolate 'mousse', another layer of sponge, followed by the milk chocolate 'mousse' yet another layer of cake topped with dark choc 'mousse' and the final layer of cake on top. I then spread the icing over the cake and placed it in the fridge.



The cake cut really well although it was a little hard to keep the slices standing up since the sponge was so light. What I did was to serve the cake on its side. Not as nice as an upright slice, but as long as the cake tasted good - right?



See? The cake was finished in one sitting. I've never had a cake that disappeared so fast. Maybe the guests were really hungry or they needed a lot of dessert to douse the fire from my Fiery Chicken Curry or maybe, just maybe, this cake was a real winner!