Delicious Coffee Mousse Cake with Caramel Sauce

Happy New Year! My new year's resolution is to keep up with blog posts. I slipped a lot in 2014 but will make more of an effort this year.

Cold weather has advantages for baking. This is a good time of the year to make desserts with chocolate and mousses.

The first recipe of the year is a delicious coffee mousse cake with caramel sauce. There are 4 items in the cake to make including the caramel sauce. If you want to keep it simple, you could skip either the cake or the crunchy bottom.

The bottom of the cake is a crunchy cornflake and milk chocolate mixture. Next layer is a sponge cake with candied orange pieces - great complement to the coffee mousse taste. Surrounding everything is a coffee mousse topped with a caramel sauce.  Let's get baking, here is the recipe!

I used a 18 cm x 6 cm ring and the cake easily serves 8 people

Crunchy bottom:
60 grams small cornflakes or other crispy cereal
60 grams milk chocolate
10 grams salad oil

 1.       Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan filled with simmering hot water. After chocolate is melted, remove it from the heat and add the salad oil in portions. Mix with a small whisk.
2.       In another bowl, combine the cornflakes and sliced almonds and pour the chocolate mixture over top.
3.       Set a 18 cm ring on plate and fill the inside of the bottom of the ring with the cornflake mixture. Put in the refrigerator to so that it becomes firm. Use a mousse film inside the ring so that the cake will be easy to remove.

Cake:
60 grams butter (room temperature)
40 grams sugar
2 eggs (room temperature)
60 grams flour
5 grams baking powder
55 grams diced orange peel

2.       Sift the flour and baking powder together and add to the above. Use the whisk to mix. Then add the diced orange peel and mix using a spatula.
3.       Pour into a pan about 20 cm x 20 cm and bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes.

Coffee Mousse:
150 grams milk
6 grams gelatin
3 egg yolks
12 grams sugar
10 grams instant coffee
250 grams white chocolate
200 grams fresh cream

2.       Heat the milk and coffee in a saucepan. Mix the sugar and egg yolks in a bowl. Add the heated milk to the egg yolk mixture and mix then add to the saucepan again. Heat on a low heat until the mixture becomes lightly thickened. Remove from the heat and add the gelatin and mix well. Pour into a bowl and cool to about 25 degrees Celsius. Add the chocolate to this in portions and mix with a small whisk.
3.    In another bowl, whip the fresh cream until soft peaks form. Add the cream to the chocolate mixture in portions and mix with a spatula. Keep the this bowl over a bowl filled with ice water so that the consistency begins to thicken. Timing is everything - do not cool too much otherwise everything will become firm too quickly.

Putting Cake together:
1.       Cut the cake to fit inside the ring, but make the size about ½ cm smaller than the ring. Place the cake on top of the cornflake filling and pour the mousse on top.
2.       Put in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before cutting.

Caramel Sauce:
100 grams sugar
200 grams fresh cream

1. Heat the fresh cream in a saucepan until it lightly boils.
2. Heat the sugar in a saucepan until it turns a light caramel color. Turn off the heat and add the fresh cream and stir with a spoon to mix. Pour into a bowl to cool.

Ready for Dessert!