Mousse Muse

We made Bavarian Cream Cake and Chocolate Mousse Cake for baking class last last Saturday (just ignore the dates as backdated posts are a norm; anyway content is more important, or some say pictures :)) 

Bavarian Cake

In case you're wondering what Bavarian Cream is, it's basically a cream which uses Gelatine as a thickening agent and usually flavoured with liqueur. However, since BITC is a Halal school, we used fruit puree to flavour our Bavarian Cream instead. We made some Mango Bavarian using mango puree,  egg yolks, sugar, cream and gelatine. It wasn't too difficult, the only tricky part was the cooking fo the custard whereby much patience is required in order to yield a smooth, thick and un-over cooked custard. 

Before we began slathering Bavarian cream onto the chocolate sponge cake, we made a sponge stencil cake to line the circumference of the cake. We basically used a meringue based recipe to make the stencil, after which we plop a layer of sponge cake batter on top and sent it for baking. Baking time is crucial and one has to keep a close watch as over baking the stencil cake would result in much difficulty when it comes to lining the cake with the stencil sponge. The trick is to use some sugar syrup to help soften and make the stencil cake malleable. 

Stencil Work.

After lining the cake with the stencil work, we began layering the cake with Bavarian Cream. I thought the Mango Bavarian Cream tasted really weird with the chocolate sponge cake; a vanilla sponge cake would have been a better choice. Also, in order to have a nice, well coated cake; do ensure the sponge cake is slightly smaller than the cake ring.

I made the Bavarian Cream Cake for Dad's Birthday and honestly it didn't taste that good. I thought the Bavarian Cream was a tad too gelatine-y and I would have preferred it a little less sweet. I also thought neutral tasting sponge of fruity sponge would have better complemented the cream.

Happy Birthday Daddy and may you forever be happy :)

Just look at the clean cut cake! You can imagine how well set and gelatinize the cake is. I think the gelatine did help produce a beautiful cake but taste-wise, not too helpful. Maybe those gelatine sheets, made from seaweed, would have made this cake taste better?

We coated the mini Bavarian cakes with a layer of mango mousse jelly which honestly tasted funky; then again I ain't a mousse cake fan.

Mini Bavarian Cake

Besides Bavarian Cake, we also made some chocolate mousse cake which was torturously challenging. Chocolates are nice to eat but they are a pain to meddle with, especially white chocolate! I had to re-do my white chocolate mousse as the white chocolate split and resulted in a rough, grainy, oily mousse. My 2nd attempt wasn't much of a success too but due to the lack of time, we decided to go ahead with the grainy white chocolate mousse. Although dark chocolate was easier to deal with, we also faced some hiccups here and there and at that moment, I swore never to make chocolate mousse ever again (of course I didn't quite mean it).

THe Making of White and Dark Chocolate Mousse

I thought the Chocolate Mousse wasn't too bad; though I personally prefer denser mousse. Indeed the white chocolate mousse was grainy and had lumps of white chocolate in it but my Dad actually liked how the textured mousse. He was like "Oooo, theres white chocolate lumps in there too, not bad!" lol Dad, you're funny. 

White and Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake (We had to stinge on the dark chocolate as it was running out)