The 112th Bake: Mary’s Double Chocolate Mousse Entremets

This is a showstopper by the way. Not sure my sponge was up to par, but they certainly looked the part, cuteness wise and tasted like a true showstopper. Speaking of showstoppers, have you ever wanted to go to a restaurant for years, never gotten around to it, then the restaurant closes. That happened to me with an Italian restaurant in the city. But fortunately for me it has reopened, under another name, in a different location so I finally got to go. It was amazing, beat my expectations hands down. Not to mention the fact we had a 5 course degustation menu.

Well I had never tried an entremet, didn’t know in fact what that was, so here goes.

I started this bake in the evening, just planning to make the sponge to get things started. This involved first making a decorative paste. I creamed butter and icing sugar, added egg whites and then folded in the flour and cocoa powder. I needed a silicone sheet to put this on, and although I bought one on the internet, it didn’t arrive in time, so I used baking paper instead. Maybe not so good, but it did a fair job.

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I poured the paste into the bottom of a flat baking dish, and using a fork made a pinstripe pattern, not easy. This then went into the freezer and when it came out, I turned it upside down into the sponge tin. It would form the base of the sponge!! Lucky I had seen them making this on The Great British Bake Off or I would not have had a clue what to do!!

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Now onto the jaconde sponge,(sounds fancy). I whisked the egg whites until stiff peaks and added caster sugar, to make a glossy meringue. I set this aside, then mixed together ground almonds, icing sugar and whole eggs until the mixture was doubled in volume. I folded in the flour and the meringue mixture. Then poured melted butter down the side. (I left the meringue sitting too long so had to whisk up a bit more, just to be safe, as it had gone liquid!! Woops)

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The sponge mixture went on top of the chocolate paste and cooked in a hot oven for 7 minutes. The cooked sponge was then flipped over to reveal the fancy underside, (Not such clear stripes in my case, oh well never mind) and cooled until tomorrow, after I’d been shopping for my 6 x 6.5 mini cake rings!

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So I managed to purchase some little ramekins. I cut out rectangles of sponge to line the sides of the little dishes, and placed a disc of sponge in the bottom. A bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle.

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I made the chocolate mousse by melting dark chocolate over a bain maire, then added a knob of butter and egg yolks. I whisked the egg whites until stiff and the cream to soft peaks (lots of separate whisking to do), then added these to the melted chocolate. Mousse done. I put the chocolate mousse into a piping bag and piped it into the sponge lined ramekins.

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Now onto the white chocolate mousse which was kinda the same but without the egg yolks. I separated the eggs, and whisked the egg whites to stiff peaks, whisked the cream till soft peaks and added these to the melted white chocolate. Then I piped this on top

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Now all I had to do was demould after they had been in the fridge for a while to set and decorate with raspberries and blueberries. Pretty.

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And pretty rich I’d have to say. They did go down well though and with all the left over mousse I filled even more pots, so no one was deprived, that’s for sure.

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And btw, only 2 bakes to go…!!!!!!!!!