369 – Chocolate Mousse Cake / كيكة الشوكولاتة الرغوية

Ingredients :

• 5.5 oz (160 grams) dark chocolate (60-70% cocoa content)
• 11 tablespoons (160 grams) unsalted butter
• 5 large eggs
• 1/2 cup (100 grams) white granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup (40 grams) white granulated sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste (optional)
• Cocoa powder for decoration

Directions :

Step 1 – Preparing the Ingredients: 
1- First, let’s chop the chocolate… make sure to use a high quality dark chocolate, at least 60% cocoa content. This is the main ingredient so go for the best!
2- Melt the chocolate with the butter, either in the microwave in 30 second shots while mixing in between or in a bowl over boiling water. Mix the butter and chocolate well, add a little bit of vanilla paste if you want, then let them sit on your kitchen counter to cool down a bit while preparing the rest of the recipe.
3- In 2 different large bowls, separate the egg yolks from the egg whites.

Step 2 – Mixing the Eggs: 
1- Add sugar (1/4 cup) to the egg yolks and beat with an electric beater for around 5 minutes until you get a thick whitish mixture.
2- Clean you egg beater, very important, and let’s move to the egg whites. Notice, the egg whites should have NO traces of the egg yolks, otherwise, they will not fluff.
3- Add a pinch of salt, and beat the egg whites at high speed.
4- When you start seeing a thick white foam, add the sugar (1/2 cup) little by little, while continuing to whip the eggs. Beat, beat , beat until the egg whites are white, fluffy, firm, with stiff peaks.

Step 3 – Mixing the Ingredients: 
1- Add a little bit of the melted chocolate and butter into the egg yolk mixture.  Using a spatula, mix in then add a little more chocolate. We are trying to bring up the temperature of the egg yolk mixture by adding the warm chocolate step by step – otherwise, if we add the chocolate all at once we could cook those egg yolks and you don’t want that. Continue adding and mixing both, until you get a thick chocolate cream.
2- Now add the fluffy egg whites to the chocolate mixture, little by little. It is very important to mix gently… circular movements, from top to bottom, then cutting across with the spatula. This way we can keep all this fluffiness alive.

Step 4 – Baking the Cake: 
1- Let’s prepare our baking pan. As usual butter the pan, cover with parchment paper, butter the parchment paper… and in this recipe, I am using a baking circle, it does not have bottom because it’s easy to remove later. If you don’t have it, no worries, just use any baking pan you have.
2- Pour half of the chocolate mousse in the baking pan, and keep the other half in the fridge.
3- Bake in a preheated oven at 360 F  / 180 C for around 15 minutes. To check if the cake is ready, gently touch the top of your cake with your fingers, it should feel firm and springy.
4- Remove the circle around the cake and carefully place the cake in a plate. (if you are using a pan just keep the cake in there otherwise, it would break).
Note: You will notice that the cake is shrinking and quickly… Don’t worry, it’s expected because there is no flour in this cake.

Step 5 – Final Steps: 
1- Place a smaller circle on top of the cake and fill it with the cold chocolate mousse. Cover with a plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours before serving.
2- When you are ready to show off your cake, remove the circle around the mousse, smooth up the edges with a spatula, then dust some cocoa powder on top.
Bon appetit