Building A Lemon Mousse Cake: Gravity hurts us all in the end, I suppose...

This is the horrible picture of what was left of the mousse after 30 minutes:

So my lemon mousse cake was a bit messier than the picture in the book...but every bit as delicious. It was a little better than lemon pudding, but not quite as spectacular as my first lemon mousse attempt. This is in the "Dressy Desserts" section of the cookbook (The Best of Heartsmart Cooking) so I knew I had my work cut out for me. It was only 3 layers, though, so there was hope.

First you make the ladyfingers:

Eggs, separated
granulated sugar
vanilla
cream of tartar
cake flour
powdered sugar (I'd say optional...it doesn't really seem to serve a purpose in an already-sweet cake)

You need a very big baking sheet that can hold two 8-inch round layers of ladyfingers. It's kind of finicky, but you're supposed to take a large sheet of wax paper and trace the bottom of two 8-inch cake pans onto the surface of the paper. (Actually, it's better to make the circle about 8-and-a-half-inches...I'll explain below). Turn the paper upside-down on the large baking sheet. Then scrape the batter into a pastry bag and pipe discs by starting in the middle of the circle and spiraling out to the edge. Making a perfect circle is kind of important or you'll get a icicle-like protrusion in the side of your mousse cake and the mousse layers will fall around it. Or you just cut it off...nothing dire will come of it. It's just not as perfect. Actually, I didn't even pipe because I don't own a pastry bag and plastic doesn't work well. Mostly I thought I could get away with it because in the instructions it refers to another recipe but says you just follow those batter directions and then spread the batter evenly between the two circles. Ambiguous spreading instructions for such a perfect mousse cake...

Anyway, this is actually pretty easy to make:

Beat egg yolks, vanilla, and less than half the sugar for 2 1/2 to 3 minutes (don't skimp, says Alice).
Beat egg whites with cream of tartar at high speed until soft peaks form, then add remaining sugar until stiff peaks form.
Then fold a third of the whites into the yolk mixture
Add half the remaining whites and sift (don't dump) half the flour on top, and fold.
Then add remaining whites, sift remaining flour on top, and fold again.

The folding method is described in the book:

"Scrape a large scoop of batter up the side of the bowl. Lift it above the rest and let it fall gently back on top. Rotate the bowl and continue to cut, scrape, and lift batter without mixing, stirring, or smoothing. It may seem as if the parts will never come together, but they will [encouraging, Alice]. Scrape around the sides of the bowl from time to time and scrape the batter off the spatula with another spatula. Fold until barely combined."

A problem with this is sometimes you don't get a clean cut down into the mousse, and is it okay to cut through the part you just folded to the top? Or should that part be closer to the edge so you fold around it? I mean, it must be okay to cut through your just-folded sections or it'll never actually mix, but it seems so counter-intuitive to cut through the fluffiest part of the mousse.

I digress.

Optionally, sieve with powdered sugar.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 8-10 minutes, until just golden brown. I'd err on the side of less-golden so you mousse cake doesn't get too crisp or dry. Dry cake doesn't go well with soft mousse. When they're cool, peel off the wax paper. The layers didn't spread during baking so I hoped I'd done alright...

Then take a pastry brush and the tops of the layers with 2 tbsp of rum. Place one layer, rum-side up in a 9-inch springform pan (This way you can just remove the sides of the pan when you're ready to serve the mousse instead of trying to move a toppling structure to a serving dish). Then brush the bottom of the 2nd layer with another tbsp of rum and set it aside.

Make the lemon mousse:
This recipe I've given in another post...lemony pillows of air. Refrigerate it for at least 4 hours or you'll end up with mousse cake soup. Delicious, but not what I was going for.

This is the delicate part. Scrape half the mousse on top of the first ladyfinger layer in the 9-inch round pan. Spread the mousse to fill in between the pan and the layer. This is a problem if your ladyfinger layers didn't spread...apparently they're not supposed to spread, and yet somehow you're supposed to start with 8-inch cake circles of ladyfingers and end up with almost 9-inch circles when you put it all together. So make the layers a little bigger than 8-inch and then it'll be okay to extend the mousse off of the layers. It makes it a lot easier to even the sides of the mousse if you can use the springform cake pan to even it for you.

Now Alice says level the top of the mousse. She says she does this on a cake decorating turntable with a cake comb with a serrated edge...but you really don't need a turntable...and you really don't need a comb. Very overrated. She says you can also use a clean index card folded length-wise (to stiffen it). Hold the folded edge against the mousse while you rotate the cake. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least another four hours.

The last layer!! This gives the top of the cake a beautiful yellow colour, which makes the white mousse layer look very clean and smooth.

Gelatin
Cold water
Strained orange juice
strained lemon juice
sugar

Sprinkle the gelatin over the water in a small cup. Leave at least 1 minute without stirring (funny how some recipes she says this explicitly, but not all. Am I allowed to stir in the other recipes? I wouldn't dare, but it's a little bit of a bright red apple calling out to me...

When it's softened set the cup in a pan of barely simmering water (or microwave on high for 15 seconds...Wonder which one I chose?) to melt the gelatin.

Combine the contents of the cup with the orange juice, lemon juice and sugar, and stir to dissolve the sugar. Set aside until thickened...no time is given...but it should be syrupy. If it gets to thick set it in a pan of hot water (or microwave again for a few seconds on low. It really should be gently brought back to syrup and the microwave should stay out of this whole process. It feels so unnatural...but so convenient).

Since your mousse should be touching the edge of the sprinform pan, you just pour a thin coating of this lemon mixture on top and tilt the pan in every direction to spread evenly. If your mousse hasn't set enough, this is where you get soup...The ladyfinger layers need to stay in place and there should be no movement in the pan.

Chill at least 30 minutes to set.

To serve(!) use a hot, wet, wrung-out towel to warm the sides of the pan for about 30 seconds. CAREFULLY remove the sides of the pan.

A garnish would look really beautiful on top of this...a fresh sliced strawberry, or a few blackberries.

Despite the ragged appearance, it was still so good...

So many mousses...

1 day before great Christmas Party 2009, I had 3 meringues to make as part of:

1. A double batch of Bittersweet Frozen Chocolate Truffle Mousse Cookies
2. A lemon mousse cake
3. The outer layer of the baked frozen Buche de Noel.

I was a little nervous.

First the Bittersweet Chocolate Truffle Mousse.

I can't remember the last time I ate a truffle, one you buy at a gourmet chocolate shop. So when I discovered Ricemilk Chocolate bars that came in a dark truffle variety I think I cried from joy. Well, that or called my also lactose-intolerant mother to share the good news. Christmas present shopping has been easier ever since.

This bittersweet chocolate truffle mousse recipe actually only calls for bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, of which you can find many varieties without dairy, but for pure truffle decadence, you have to try this ricemilk chocolate bar from Terra Nostra Organic for baking. You can google it. I've advertised for them enough now.

Gelatin
eggs, separated
cocoa
sugar
milk
4 oz dark chocolate truffle bar, chopped fine
vanilla
cream of tartar

I've already given this recipe in a previous post, but basically you use the egg yolks to make a thick mixture of the sugar, cocoa and milk in a saucepan that you pour over the chopped chocolate, gelatin and vanilla, and leave to cool in an ice bath.

Then you make the meringue. I figured it would actually be easier to make the needed double recipe since the egg whites wouldn't cook as quickly...or I'd end up with twice as many scrambled egg whites. I even managed to separate 4 eggs so no yolk got into my whites and caused them to lose volume when I beat them. I had my thermometre ready in a very, very hot mug of water near the frying pan/double boiler and had assistance in keeping the stirring going while checking with the thermometre after 1 minute to see if the whites had reached the safe temperature of 160 Fahrenheit. I had gotten a hot mat ready in advance for the bowl which came out of the frying pan quickly, and the beaters were plugged in and conveniently placed next to the mat to start beating immediately. I don't know if this is all paranoia but it certainly seems like you can't leave your egg whites to sit and wait while you plug things in and set things up. They will revolt and either cook or refuse to expand. So I immediately beat them until cool and stiff, checking with the beaters by turning them off and lifting them out of the bowl to see if the meringue stuck up like stalagmites and stayed in place. They stayed.

Then I folded. Some chocolate on top of egg, then egg back on chocolate. Then it froze. The nice thing about this chocolate mousse is by freezing it the mousse tastes richer and it doesn't need to be as fluffy as, say, a lemon mousse. It won't taste like chocolate pillows of air, but it needed to be made correctly so it didn't just melt and ooze out of the chocolate cookie sandwiches I was going to put it in. The picture above is of the cookies set out as sandwich layers and a bowl of chocolate mousse from which party guests could fill them. Make-your-own frozen chocolate mousse sandwiches...A bit messy if the mousse gets oozy, but so, so delicious...This was about 3 hours into the party and the mousse had mutinied by then, BUT for a good hour the frozen mousse held its shape.

I'll call it a success. Baby steps in the right direction...ever toward mousse.

The Sky fell back up (I destroyed a milk chocolate mocha mousse)

Back to Alice Medrich's "Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts".

Oh Alice, I'm not happy with you right now. I'm not happy with me, sure, but I'm not happy with you. Your bittersweet chocolate truffle mousse recipe is sublime - manageable and delicious. but your white chocolate mousse recipe which is also used for the milk chocolate mocha mousse I tried make yesterday) is not very good at all. It follows the same general guide to mousse-making (add soaked gelatin to chocolate mixture and let thicken, make safe meringue and then fold together) but the chocolate mixture doesn't have any egg yolks, which would help thicken it, and the meringue just didn't work the same way using a skillet as it did when I used a pot of water.

Take 1: the eggs I was using (brought to room temperature so they would cooperate), wouldn't separate, and I got yolk in my cream of tartar and water mixture.

Take 2: The water couldn't go up the sides of the bowl inside the skillet, and the recipe didn't say how hot the water should be, so even with incessant scraping and stirring to keep the egg whites from cooking, they cooked. Scrambled egg white mousse is not delicious.

Take 3: I lowered the heat of the water in the skillet and got assistance to hold the candy thermometre in place. The trick is that when you place a bowl of egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar and water in a skillet of hot water, you need to stir quickly so the eggs don't solidify, but you don't want to over-stir and minimize the rising potential of the whites, which you'll need once you remove them from the heat. The whole purpose of this ridiculous method is to make sure the whites reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent the possibility of salmonella poisoning, which is rare enough, but does happen. Does the end of not possibly getting sick from salmonella outweigh the pain of fussing with a thermometre while you try so hard to not cook eggs? Depends how much mousse you make in your life time, and how lucky you feel. I initially tried my tested method of stirring with the thermometre while waiting to see if the eggs were hot enough. Nope, they started scrambling. Quickly help came in the form of a friend holding the thermometre for me while I stirred. It was safe! Unfortunately I think the eggs can scramble at a lower temperature if you're not stirring, so just because they're starting to cook doesn't mean they've reached the right temperature. Quickly off the heat, I stuck the egg beaters in the bowl and beat at highest speed until stiff peaks formed. Well, see, that was tough to tell, because the eggs didn't rise. Like my naan, they had nothing left in them to give. I beat until it seemed like they may have been stiff and then let a mousse novitiate fold the chocolate mixture and whites together. It was a bit soupy.

So I decided to call it pudding. It was not light and fluffy. Like the naan, it was a bit dense. "Stunned as me arse", we'd say in Newfoundland. Once it refrigerated a bit, it did solidify a little, but there was certainly no more air getting into it. It was not a fluffy pillow on my tongue.

Well, mousse, I'll try again tomorrow. Christmas still needs three more meringues out of me. That's a lot of second chances. Lemon mousse cake, frozen chocolate mousse cookie filling and mocha buche de noel await.