Irregularities – Strawberry bavarian mousse/mirror cake

// 61 Comments
Final experiment running, data to be analysed, research articles to be massaged and finally a thesis should be generated. You heard me right? yes all these final stuffs has been keeping me occupied (no complaints, I’m happy with this phase) and also in such a state of mind that I kept adding sugar instead of salt to curry and was thinking huh this summer tomatoes are too sweet, hello excuse me in which world? Before I could realise the curry was almost a dessert! Wish to note down all these kinds of incidents, which makes me go fierce at that moment but it, would be a comic book for me in the future alas it will be a endless comic book! 
So lovely people kindly bear with me, you will see the regular irregularities of my presence in APL on the brighter side you are soon going to have some surprises stay tuned! 
This recipe is from my Japanese friend, Reiko, she made it as layer cake (green tea cake+ agar agar+ strawberry mousse) it was fantastic. I replicated only mousse part with thin eggless chocolate cake and strawberry jelly/mirror on top! The mousse is very special, not too sweet with tad bit of sourness, smooth and rich. If you all are wondering what is that leaf? I have no idea except for the fact it’s edible. The name was written in Finnish which obviously I forgot to note it down! Basically used them to bring some contrast. Enjoy the cake till the blogger part in me wakes up again :) 

Eggless Chocolate Cake
(I wouldn’t state it as world best eggless cake but it was just fine, it’s first time i tried eggless version, it was not too fluffy but soft and moist, served the purpose of being good base!) 
Ingredients 
50 ml milk (i used 1.5% fat)
100 gram sugar
120 gram melted butter 
150 gram all purpose flour
30 gram cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Mix the dry ingredients first (flour + baking power + cocoa powder).
Melt butter, then add in sugar, then slowly mix flour and milk in steps till is uniformly mixed and required consistency is obtained. (If batter is too thick, adding milk in step of 10 ml till the required consistency is obtained). Pour the batter in greased 18 cm baking pan and bake in preheated oven at 180 C for about 30 to 40 minutes till tooth pick inserted comes out clean).
Let the cake cool aside, it definitely should be at room temperature; else it would melt the mousse. I let them cool over night. 
Bavarian Mousse
Ingredients
200 gram strawberries (room temperature) ( or 4 tbspn strawberry jam) 
60 gram sugar  
Lemon juice 1/2 tbspn
Water 50 ml
Gelatin 5 gram
Fresh cream 150 ml
Put strawberry + sugar+ lemon juice in blender and blend until smooth. Next filter the smoothie. Add gelatin in warm water in order for them to melt. Then sieve in gelatin into the smoothie, be quick and make sure your strawberry smoothie is at room temperature.
Next whip cream unil light and fluffy (single peaks are formed). Slowly incorporate cream to the strawberry smoothie and until it is uniformly mixed. Then place the bowl over the bowl of ice water, till the liquid gets viscous. 
Assembling  
Use a detachable cake pan and skillfully place cling foil to the inside sides of the cake pan.
Then place cooled chocolate cake and press with fingers so that cakes sits well to the bottom. As soon the mousse mixture gets viscous pour into the cake pan. Let it set in refrigerator for about 4 hrs. 
Once mousse sets next prepare the strawberry jelly or mirror part.
Strawberry juice
Strawberry 14 grams
100 ml water
50 gram sugar (add more if you want them sweet, try drinking the juice and check)
Blend together and filter the juice
For mirror
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tbspn water
3/4 tbspn gelatin powder
Few drop of red food color
In a small bowl pour lemon juice and water, sprinkle gelatin over the mixture and let it aside till soft. Next  pour strawberry juice in a sauce pan and bring to simmer and pour the juice to gelatin mixture. Stir till gelatin melts, next add food colour. then place the bowl over bowl of ice water till the liquid becomes syrupy, when its just beings to thicken pour it over the top of the cake and refrigerate until set. 
After the cake sets un-mold the cake pan, remove the cling foil and serve the cake cold!

61 comments

  5. aipi says:

    Wow that looks so nice and clean it almost looks plastic and I mean it in the best possible way. The vibrant red color is irresistible. If you put a slice of this among an assortment of cakes I am bound to pick this one.

    USMasala

  7. Andrea the Kitchen Witch says:

    You are so talented!! The photos are awesome as always. I want to try this for sure, its such a stunning presentation. I love the leaf wrapped berries on top. Speaking of berries, those are absolutely gorgeous!!

  18. Taste Junction says:

    Its such a dainty & pretty cake..And that’s when you are distracted. wonder what cake we will get to see when you are fully concentrated.

    Anamika@Taste Junction

  22. Tanvi@SinfullySpicy says:

    What a pretty pretty cake girl..that color makes me weak in the knees..I cant believe its eggless!! Thanks for sharing it..I have a little cousin who is allergic to eggs but love strawberries..so I ll forward this recipe to her mom!
    The pictures of strawberries- STUNNING!

  23. Ushnish Ghosh says:

    Dear Ananda
    How are you? So you are approaching the famous final lunatic ( almost) phase of PhD completion!! I am sure you will come out with flying colors.
    This is a pretty tough cake so I will not venture into making this one even if you gave a detailed recipe. ha ha. The photographs are awesome ( as usual) ! R U doing PhD in light or what?
    Of course I will bear with your situation and will stay tuned for the surprise.
    Have a great weekend and happy sweet curry and salted tea!!!

  27. kankana says:

    I have no clue how you manage a blog with all this work load in between. You rock my friend! And yes, I will stay tune for the surprise :)
    This cake is looking just so pretty and reminds me of the strawberry mouse I had made recently.

  33. Catherine says:

    Surprise eh? Oooh thats exciting, Ananda! The cake looks tremendous; so professional looking and pretty :) I love the leaf detail on each of the strawberries too 😀 good luck with the rest of you PhD… the end is nigh!

  35. MaryMoh says:

    Wow…that’s such a beautiful cake! I’m sure it will wipe off all stress from all the assignments and deadlines to meet 😀 I really admire how you can cook, bake, blog and study at the same time. If I were you, my food will be burnt, I will miss deadlines, my blogging will be a few sentences and my face will probably be long like a papaya…haha. All the best and hope you have a wonderful day! 😀

  36. Suman Singh says:

    That might be the prettiest cake I’ve ever seen..It looks spectacular..I would love to taste it. Gonna have to put on my list of things to bake..thanks for sharing! Have a nice weekend dear..take care!

  39. Plateful says:

    Hey this looks like the work of an artist, trust me. I got a similar strawberry mini-cake for my boys b’day. You can actually see the picture on my recent post, if you are interested. Hope to see ya back in full swing once you’re done with your pressing engagements. And yep, we’re ready for the surprises.. ! :)

  40. Roxana GreenGirl says:

    ha ha ha, I put once sugar in soup and kept putting, the more I put the unsalted it tasted and took me a while to realize why :))
    the cake looks amazing, and mousse, mmmm, yes please!!

  41. Mary says:

    What a beautiful cake.That you would attempt anything so involved when you are so busy amazes me. This is my first visit to your blog but I plan to return. You have created a lovely spot for your readers to visit and I really enjoyed the time I spent here. I really like the food and recipes you feature here. I’ll definitely be back. I hope you have a great day. Blessings…Mary

  50. Nami | Just One Cookbook says:

    Wow! Not only you impressed me with gorgeous photos (very obvious part! 😉 ), but your mousse looks super delicious and delicate. I miss having this kind of sophisticated dessert. As I don’t bake, I rely on our source…but unlike Japan, it’s so hard to find a good bakery here who bakes cake like this!!! And I know it’s not related, but I love your tea strainer…with pink polka dot cup!! I fell in love…

  52. Victor says:

    I know what you mean. Research, analysis, and papers to be published asap. I’m going through same phase as you right now, except for the thesis that I still have 2 more years to go…

    I probably miss your past posts. What is exactly your field of research? Are you heading for a post-doc next year?

    I love all your colorful pics, strawberry mousse, that’s something I want to try out.

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