mousse

Ivoire Royale – White Chocolate Mousse & Berry Cake

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According to Extraordinary Desserts’ website:

“Ivoire Royale — An exquisite torte made of fine layers of vanilla bean soaked pound cakes and creamy white chocolate mousse. Bursting with fresh raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and blueberries, this delicate mousse torte is hidden by white chocolate shaving dusted with powdered sugar.”

This is a 10″ cake, with sour cream pound cake layers, brushed with vanilla simple syrup. In between the layers are white chocolate sour cream mousse, fresh whipped cream, and berries. I only used strawberries and blackberries in my cake, but I think any combination would work. The decoration is white chocolate shavings and curls.

I’m not sure the recipe for mousse in the cookbook quite worked. For a better mousse consistency, I suggest the following:

White Chocolate Sour Cream Mousse
  • 4 egg yolks
  • cup granulated sugar
  • ¾ cup sour cream (room temperature)
  • 6.5 oz (1 ¼ cup) white chocolate
  • 2 cup heavy cream
  • ⅓ cup powdered sugar

Directions

  1. Heat ¾ cup of the heavy cream in a saucepan until it boils/simmers. Pour over white chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Let sit for a couple minutes before stirring with a spatula until the white chocolate is melted and smooth.
  2. Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a stand mixer until pale yellow and fluffy.
  3. Add melted chocolate to the whipped egg yolks.
  4. In a separate bowl, beat the remaining heavy cream and powdered sugar together until peaks form.
  5. Gently fold in the whipped cream and sour cream into the white chocolate-egg yolk mousse base.

I played with this while in-process, so the measurements may not be exact, particularly with respect to the whipped cream addition. I think that part can be made to-taste and to-texture, depending on what consistency and level of sweetness you are aiming for. The important addition here to the cookbook is the whipped egg yolk base, which gives the mousse a sturdier structure that won’t run.

I had previously attempted this in cupcake form, but because this cake relies on being soaked in vanilla simple syrup, and having almost as much (or perhaps more) mousse and whipped cream than cake, I don’t think the cupcake form delivers the same texture and flavor. Not to mention, I also dropped my entire batch of cupcakes before delivering them to a potluck event, so it is not quite a happy memory. One day, I will post a collage of all my disasters (usually in transit), when it doesn’t pain me so much to think about it!

Yellow roses for my SYZters:

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Oreo Cupcakes – Cookies & Cream

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I had been planning this cupcake for a while, thinking about what ways I could make an Oreo cupcake that was something more than just a cake base and buttercream frosting on top. I’m pretty satisfied with the result here, although I think there are many more interesting variations to try. Coincidentally, my sister-in-law baked a version of an Oreo cupcake on the same exact night with a whole Oreo cookie at the bottom, which I definitely want to try next time! I was afraid a whole cookie at the base would burn or disappear somehow, but I hear it stays crunchy and is quite delicious.

Here, I have a chocolate cake with a fudge cookie bar in the middle. The fudge cookie bar is a baked Oreo cookie bar with ganache poured on top. Because the cookie is made from ground Oreos, it is crumbly rather than “crunchy”, but I will continue to experiment with that. The ganache adds a smooth creamy moist filling.

For the frosting, I made an Oreo “mousse.” I did in fact try a mousse base, but the egg yolks made the frosting too yellow. Then I tried the same mousse with egg whites instead of egg yolks, but that doesn’t hold up. Then I tried a meringue buttercream base without the butter, but the texture and taste just weren’t quite right. Finally, I ended up with a whipped cream stabilized with some gelatin, with ground Oreos folded in, and I think I achieved the light fluffy consistency I was looking for. The cookie on top is a Nabisco chocolate wafer, like the type I used in my Icebox Cake. I would not recommend grinding up this wafer for the frosting. The wafer has ground coconut in it, which results in an odd crunch/chew that does not blend well with whipped cream.

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