Week Fifty-Two: Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake (AKA The End)

(This week’s recipe came from November 2009 issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine).

Well folks, this is it. The last week of my year-long baking project. I made this cake on January 10th, I believe, ten days later than I should have. I attempted to make Chocolate Covered Hi Hats for New Year’s Eve, but the cupcakes imploded in the oven and I just didn’t have it in me that night to try again. So I accepted that things happen, and plotted something to make a few days late.

Rob and I were watching America’s Test Kitchen one day, and they made the most incredible looking Triple Chocolate Mousse cake. I started scouting around online to see if I could find the recipe, but those Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated fans are an ethical bunch. No one had the recipe listed, but I noticed that someone mentioned it was in the November issue of Cooks Illustrated magazine. Sure enough, I had that issue on my shelf. And there was the recipe.

And so, ten days late, I began my final week of baking for the year.

The recipe started with a flourless chocolate cake base in the bottom of a springform pan. The cake layer baked beautifully, other than the fact that it started pulling away from the side of the pan. I noticed commentors on the America’s Test Kitchen message board had this same problem, but I have no idea how one would fix it. Someone mentioned not greasing the pan before pouring in the batter, but I would be terrified that the cake would stick. I just went with it.

Flourless chocolate cake batter:

Baked:

The next layer that went down was a dark chocolate mousse layer. Heavenly:

The final layer was a white chocolate mousse layer that used gelatin as a stabilizer (I’ve really discovered the power of gelatin this year):

I topped it with some dark chocolate shavings because it looked kind of naked with nothing on top. After I refrigerated the cake for a few hours, we took it out, crossed our fingers and unmolded the cake.

It worked!!!

You’ll note that my layers aren’t as distinct as they should be. That’s because the dark chocolate mousse layer seeped down into the area where the flourless chocolate cake pulled away from the side of the pan. But once we cut some slices, the layers became more distinct:

This cake was pretty fantastic. The only problem was that it was so rich, we couldn’t eat much of it. Tragically, half the cake had to be thrown out after a day or two because we just couldn’t keep eating it. But I hope to make it again in the future and take it to an event or family gathering so it can get the proper respect it deserves!

So that’s it! 52 weeks, a little more than 52 baked goods. A few failures, a few standout favorites and a lot of money spent on ingredients, cookbooks and toys. I can’t even put into words how proud of myself I am that I finished this project. The fact that I learned some new techniques, discovered my love of Christopher Kimball and Co. and made croissants from scratch are just the tip of the iceberg; I finished a project that I started! So so amazing.

Now that we’re a month into 2010, I’ve been thinking about what I want to do now. I’m going to take a break from weekly baking. While I enjoyed almost every minute of it, it can be exhausting. But I’ve already baked a few things this year for birthdays, so I don’t think I can stay away for long. Baking has gotten into me and I don’t think it’ll leave any time soon.

I hope by the end of February to launch a new blog that will feature not only things I’ve baked, but reviews of bakeries and cookery stores in my new city, baking news and baking-related events I’ve attended or wish that I could attend (I’ve managed to attend a book signing by Jen Yates of Cake Wrecks fame and Christopher Kimball and Jack Bishop of Cooks Illustrated/Cooks Country/America’s Test Kitchen fame (eeeeeeeee!) ). I’ve already got a website on hold, but I won’t mention the address yet, as I want everything in place before I unveil it.

I want to thank everyone who supported me during this year, especially my husband, who acted as taste-tester, ingredient-fetcher and shoulder to cry on when things didn’t go so well. I love you.