Strawberry Chocolate Mousse Mini Cakes

Time to experiment again. The boy comes home from school every afternoon & asks me what I did the ‘whole‘ day. He wants a blow-by-blow account…& keeps saying “And Mama, and what else, and…and”, a pregnant pause between each question, in the vain hope that I’ll say I made dessert. Today he was thrilled because I eventually said, “and laundry, & working on the PC….”& finally said … “and I made some dessert.” There was a thunderbolt…a lightning of a smile! How can I break his heart so often? I often do because he has a sweet tooth, & I’m a pretty tough mother (read witch-like!)! Here is some love for him, which all of us LOVED!! Was fun making it too because I was very impatient to see if I got the layers, & if it set in a mousse…yippee, I did get visible layers, & yippee, it set after all!!

It’s just these darned strawberries. Passionate, red, delicious creatures. Absolutely irresistible. Even though I try & walk away from the shelves, they call me back gently. I bought some more today…Strawberries are popping out of every nook & cranny in the market these days…ripe, red & beautiful. They’re only going to last a short while as the days are becoming unseasonably hot, highs of 28C, & with very few refrigerated shops, they are FRAGILE! Corner shops, local vendors, supermarkets, they’re all brimming with these luscious strawberries.

I keep seeing these beautiful individually plated desserts that people make, & have been collecting condensed milk tins for a while. We don’t get any specialised baking tins etc in India, & they are pretty steep when we go overseas. Besides, there is always so much more to buy. These tins are nice & handy, & I finally have a collection of 8 tins, tops & bottoms cut off neatly with a can opener. I even use a ring to make a ring cake by placing it in the centre of a Springform cake tin, to make a ring mould.

STRAWBERRY CHOCOLATE YOGURT MOUSSE
My recipe
Biscuit base
Ingredients:
100gms digestive biscuits; ground
4 tbsp melted butter
Method:

• Mix the crumbs in with the melted butter to form the crumb mixture for the base.

Strawberry Mousse
Ingredients:
200gms Curd Cheese (made by hanging yogurt for 24 hours)
200gms Cream
2tbsps gelatin
200gms Strawberries; pureed
4-5 tbsps powdered sugar Method:

• Line the mousse tins with baking parchment.
• Sprinkle the gelatin over 1/4 cup water, & leave in a bowl of hot water until it becomes a clear liquid.
• Blend the curd cheese, strawberries & powdered sugar together until smooth. Add the clear gelatin & whisk again till well blended.
• This makes the dark strawberry mousse. Once you use a portion of this in the first mousse layer, add the whipped cream to the rest to make the light strawberry layer.

Chocolate Mousse
Ingredients:
200gms dark chocolate
100ml Cream
1 tsp gelatin
Method:

• Sprinkle gelatin powder over 2 tbsps of cold water, & leave over a bowl of hot water until clear.
• Put the dark chocolate & cream in a pan over low heat till melted, cool & stir in the clear gelatin. Mix gently but uniformly.

Assembly

Line the tins with baking parchment on the inside. Line a tray with foil, & place the tins upright on them.

If you don’t have metal moulds or rings, you can always set them in glasses.

Gently dislodge from tins before serving. Garnish with fresh strawberries & chocolate flakes etc.

Have a LOVEly day today…

Quaintly enough, the 13th of Feb also marks the day the hub & me met 19 years ago….

This recipe is being sent to Original Recipes @ Culinarty for Lore’s ongoing event.

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