A little background: I first saw this recipe in a Cook's Illustrated mag sometime in mid 2009. I wanted it in my mouf so bad but didn't have a springform pan. Then I bought the pan and got distracted with the holidays and my obsessions with cakes and buttercream. Theennnnn I realized I had a lot to learn about white chocolate after I used the nestle white chips in a recipe that called for "best quality white chocolate." Have you ever tried melting that crap!? Impossible! And yes, there is one more "then:" I let Brad borrow my collection of CI mags for holiday gift ideas (I'm a woman) and he threw them out after the holidays (he's a man). Gah! These aren't my bathroom dwelling US and AAA magazines, these live on the cookbook shelf and have prestige and purpose!! I mourned them for a week or so then bought the CI annual glossy-fancy publication with all the top recipes.. and my much desired trip choc mousse cake graced the cover.
Over the period of the last couple of weeks I began collecting the ingredients. Actually, all I needed were the bittersweet chocolates and the white chocolate, but I'm a slow shopper. Lavryn mentioned there was some good white chocolate to be had at Whole Foods, so good in fact, the checker at her local WF told her she couldn't cook with it because that would be a crime against the worlds best snacking chocolate. I purchased half a pound of vlahonet whatever the F it's called French white chocolate. I was not impressed, it smelled like sharp cheese. Like, cheese you don't snack on because you'll for sure have sour milk breath and cow farts for 3 days straight. But I rationed it smelled like that because it lived near the cheese dept. and I was a no-good white trasher who didn't know the difference between white chips and white chocolate.
So I figured I came up with enough excuses and put it off long enough. The honest truth was that the recipe scared me- three layers, three times the work. I read other reviews online that the worst part was chopping the chocolate. Well, I have this nifty chopper thing with a comfortable handle (pictures below), so that wasn't a problem for me. I also heard other people say it didn't have a whole lot of flavor, or it was too bitter. I have two things to say about that. 1) I recently went to a benefit dinner with individual triple chocolate mousse cakes served as dessert, and that thing really had no flavor, absolutely no distinction between each layer. They served it with a wonderful raspberry sauce that was the only reason I continued to monch. 2) I had a major fail with the bittersweet chocolate- I only put 5 ounces of chocolate in the base layer and the recipe called for 7. So I evened it out by only putting 5 ounces in the second layer, and decided not to change anything in the white layer. This probably helped with the bitterness factor.
Overall, the mousse cake was fairly easy to make (but not cheap). I still sensed some cheesiness in the white layer but again, I'm white trash, so what do I know about quality chocolate. In hindsight I probably would have added some vanilla to the top layer. Also feel like somebody should have warned me the bottom layer would separate from the pan, causing the second layer of mousse to spill over the cake's edge and make the whole thing look like it was only two layers in the end. At the end of the day though, we're all in it for the taste. It really was a sensational experience taking my first bite.. melty richness all over the place. I inhaled my large slice, but.. it was rich and I can't bring myself to eat anymore. Brad won't eat anything that's not boxed, so I'll bring it to my other boyfriend- work. He eats anything.
I wish I could share the recipe, but as you know, I once lost this lost it, and as you may not know, CI covets all their recipes and it is nearly impossible for us non-hacky type people to find them online. This only means one thing to me- they probably wear their horns and go after anybody publishing their recipes. No thanks! So if you need it, let me know and I'll lend you my copy.
chop chop aroo!
monch, check out my uneven layers:
and now, the sad truth about my lack of experience with springform. oh and p.s., the background music was not planned, amazing!:
Posts
OMG I want to eat that!!!!!!!! You are too cute with that pan though! Cheesy white chocolate sounds yucky. The stuff I got that was super fancy was made by Green and Black and it was really vanilla-y. It was almost like a vanilla bar instead of a chocolate bar,
ReplyDelete