Chocolate Raspberry Mousse Truffle Cake, Raspberry-Cassis Sauce

Name: Chocolate Raspberry Mousse Truffle Cake, Raspberry-Cassis Sauce
Prep time: 3 h
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 4 h
Yield: 18-20 serving(s)
Ingredients: 2 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising); 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 3 (1 1/2 ounce) Godiva dark chocolate bars, coarsely chopped; 1/2 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened; 1/3 cup vegetable shortening; 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar; 1 cup granulated sugar; 2 tablespoons granulated sugar; 1 tablespoon vanilla extract; 3 large eggs, at room temperature; 3/4 cup sour cream, at room temperature; 1 cup milk, at room temperature; 1/3 cup water; 3 tablespoons granulated sugar; 3 tablespoons framboise eau-de-vie (raspberry brandy); 1 tablespoon Grand Marnier; 8 (1 1/2 ounce) Godiva dark chocolate bars, coarsely chopped; 1 1/4 cups frozen unsweetened raspberries; 1/3 cup granulated sugar; 3 tablespoons granulated sugar; 3 large egg yolks; 1 pinch salt; 2 cups heavy cream, divided; 3 tablespoons framboise eau-de-vie (raspberry brandy); 1 tablespoon Grand Marnier; 2 teaspoons vanilla extract; 3 cups frozen unsweetened raspberries; 1 cup red currant jelly; 2/3 cup granulated sugar

Submitted by Manami

"This recipe is the winner, hands down! Just in case you want to know what it is that I'm saying -- this is the dessert that my friend Judy chose for her very elegant dinner party. This is not easy at all! It's very involved but it is so worth it! I can't begin to tell you; takes 3 hours plus baking, cooling and chilling times. Allow the truffle cake to chill overnight before serving. I am posting this for safe keeping. Can be made up to four days ahead of time."

Download

Ready In:: 4hrs
Ingredients:: 41
Serves:: 18-20

ingredients

SOUR CREAM CHOCOLATE CAKE
2 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising)
1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons baking soda
¹⁄₂ teaspoon salt
3 (1 1/2 ounce) Godiva dark chocolate bars, coarsely chopped
¹⁄₂ cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
¹⁄₃ cup vegetable shortening
¹⁄₂ cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs, at room temperature
³⁄₄ cup sour cream, at room temperature
1 cup milk, at room temperature
RASPBERRY SOAKING SYRUP
¹⁄₃ cup water
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons framboise eau-de-vie (raspberry brandy)
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier
CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY MOUSSE
8 (1 1/2 ounce) Godiva dark chocolate bars, coarsely chopped
1 ¹⁄₄ cups frozen unsweetened raspberries
¹⁄₃ cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 large egg yolks
1 pinch salt
2 cups heavy cream, divided
3 tablespoons framboise eau-de-vie (raspberry brandy)
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
RASPBERRY-CASSIS SAUCE
3 cups frozen unsweetened raspberries
1 cup red currant jelly
²⁄₃ cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon arrowroot
1 tablespoon water
creme de cassis, to taste
TRUFFLE FROSTING
4 (1 1/2 ounce) Godiva dark chocolate bars, coarsely chopped
¹⁄₂ cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon heavy cream
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 pinch salt
³⁄₄ teaspoon vanilla extract
sifted unsweetened cocoa powder (for dusting)
fresh raspberry, for garnish

directions

MAKE THE CHOCOLATE SOUR CREAM CAKE:
Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Lightly butter the bottom and sides of two 9x2" round cake pans. Line the bottoms of the pans with parchment paper. Dust the sides of the pans with flour and tap out the excess.
Sift together flour, baking soda and salt onto a piece of waxed paper.
Place chocolate in microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on medium(50%power)1 minute. Stir. Microwave 1 minute more or until chocolate softens.
Stir until smooth. Let cool.
Beat butter and shortening in mixing bowl until creamy, using electric mixer at medium speed.
Add brown sugar.
Continuing to beat, gradually add granulated sugar over a 4 minute period.
Continue beating for another 1-2 minutes or until mixture is a light texture and off-white in color. Beat in vanilla.
Beat eggs with fork until frothy. At medium speed while continuing to beat, slowly add beaten eggs to batter.
Add sour cream aand beat until smooth. Beat in melted chocolate until blended. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl with rubber spatula.
At low speed, beat in flour mixture alternating with milk, beginning and ending with flour, mixing until just blended. Mix batter for 10 more seconds.
Divide batter between prepared pans and smooth top.
Bake 35-40 minutes or until center springs back when gently pressed with a finger.
Cool in pans on wire racks for 5 minutes.
Run a thin-bladed knife around the edges of layers to loosen. Invert the cake layers onto wire racks.
Peel off the paper circles and leave them loosely attached to the bottom of the cake layers. Reinvert the layers onto other racks so that they are right side up.
Cool cake layers completely.
MAKE THE RASPBERRY SYRUP:
Combine water and sugar in small saucepan. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar is completely dissolved.
Raise heat to medium-high and bring syrup to boil. Remove the pan from heat and stir in the raspberry brandy and Grand Marnier.
Keep syrup covered until ready to assemble the cake.
MAKE THE CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY MOUSSE:
Put chocolate in food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade. Cover and process 30-45 second or until finely ground.
Combine frozen raspberries and 1/3 cup sugar in a noncorrosive medium saucepan. Cook over medium-heat, stirring constantly, until sugar dissolves and raspberries soften.
Press raspberry mixture through a fine meshed sieve into noncorrosive saucepan. Discard seeds. Cook raspberry pureé over medium-high heat until it reduces to 1/3 cup.
Pour hot pureé over ground chocolate.
Combine egg yolks, 3 tablespoons sugar and salt in small bowl. Whisk vigorously until well blended.
Scald 3/4 cup heavy cream in a small saucepan over medium heat. While whisking constantly, temper egg yolk mixture into saucepan of hot cream.(To temper eggs; stir a little of the hot cream into eggs to warm "temper" them. The warmed eggs are then stirred into the remaining hot mixture. Tempering helps to prevent eggs from curdling).
Continue to cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture starts to thicken. (Do not allow the custard to overcook or the custard will be grainy.).
With the motor of the food processor running immediately pour the hot custard through the feed tube. Process for 15-25 seconds or until chocolate is completely melted.
With a spatula, scrape down the side of bowl.
Add raspberry brandy, Grand Marnier and vanilla. Process briefly until blended.
Turn chocolate/raspberry mixture into large bowl.
Whip remaining heavy cream in chilled bowl just until it starts to thicken and barely forms soft peaks, using electric mixer at high speed.(Do not overwhip cream or mousse will be grainy.).
Using a rubber spatula gently fold one-third of whipped cream into chocolate/raspberry mixture to lighten it. Fold in remaining whipped cream.(Do not OVERFOLD the mousse.) Keep the mousse at room temperature while preparing cake layers.
ASSEMBLE THE TRUFFLE CAKE:
Line the inside of 2 quart round glass bowl with plastic wrap. Remove paper circles from bottoms of cake layers. Using a long serrated knife, slice each cake layer in half horizantally.
Trim one cake layer into 6-1/4" circle. Generously brush with some of the raspberry soaking syrup. Place the cake circle into the bottom of the prepared bowl. Spoon slightly less than half of the chocolate raspberry mousse over the cake and spread it evenly with a spatula.
Trim a second cake layer into 7-1/2" circle and generously brush with soaking syrup. Place cake circle on top of the mousse and press it down gently. Cover with remaining mousse.
Brush a third layer cake with remaining syrup and press it gently on top of the mousse.
Wrap the bowl in plastic-wrap and chill the truffle cake overnight.(Reserve the leftover cake layer for another use. It may be frozen for up to 1 month.).
MAKE THE RAPBERRY-CASSIS SAUCE:
Combine frozen raspberries, red currant jelly and sugar in noncorrosive medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until sugar is completely dissolved and the berries are soft. Do not let mixture boil.
Strain raspberry mixture a fine-meshed sieve into a bowl. Discard seeds. Pour raspberry pureé back into noncorrosive medium saucepan.
Put arrowroot in small cup. Slowly stir in water until mixture is smooth. Stir arrowroot paste into raspberry mixture.
Cook raspberry mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a gentle boil. Continue to boil for 30-60 seconds or until sauce is translucent.
Do not boil more than 1 minute or the sauce will become watery. Remove pan from heat. Cool sauce to room temperature and stir in Crème de Cassis, to taste. Transfer sauce to a bowl; cover and refrigerate.
MAKE THE TRUFFLE FROSTING:
Put chocolate in food processor fitted with metal chopping blade. Process for 30-45 seconds or until finely ground.
Heat cream, corn syrup and salt in small saucepan over medium heat to a gentle boil.
Pour cream mixture over chocolate in food processor. Add vanilla. Let the mixture stand for 30 seconds to melt chocolate. Process briefly until mixture is smooth. Turn into a small bowl and cover surface with plastic wrap.
Let mixture stand at room temperature for about 1 hour or until stiff enough to frost truffle cake.
ASSEMBLE THE TRUFFLE CAKE:
Remove the plastic from the top of the truffle cake bowl. Invert bowl onto cake plate and remove bowl and plastic wrap from the top of the cake.
Using a small metal cake spatula, cover the cake with an even layer of truffle frosting.
Create decorative swirls in the frosting using the back of a soup spoon.
Lightly dust the cake with cocoa powder.
Store the truffle cake in refrigerator under a cake dome for up to 4 days.
TO SERVE:
Spoon a pool of raspberry-cassis sauce onto a dessert plate. Lay a slice of cake on top of sauce. Garnish with fresh raspberries.

Questions & Replies

Got a question? Share it with the community!

Reviews

Oh my godness - what a STAR!! Spent Friday night making this creation - the recipe is very well laid out and easy to follow, and it is fiddly and takes a lot of concentration. But, the result! Made the cake to take to a girlie birthday lunch and it looked so professional!! And it tasted even better! It is surprisingly light, considering how rich it is. Will be making this one again and again and then some! I have a reputation as "the dessert queen" and this recipe will feature highly from now on!! Thank you so much for sharing! Tricia in Oz

Tricia Mendes
loved it

craigie.e

RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

Manami

Hello all, thank you for visiting My Page but forgive me for it is a work in progress! :) As I am sure you have noticed I changed my Chef Name to Manami which means love & beauty. ;) Just thought I should get with the program - my geisha & my icon! :) Don't fret, I won't change it again! I am 70 years young and I live in a nursing home, which is out of this world, I am treated like a princess and the world is my oyster! I have a private room and during the season I do taxes for most of the staff, as well as my personal clients that have been following me since I left the business world about 25 years ago. I was rear-ended by a van and it turned my whole world upside down. Why dwell on that? I am an American Jew (from NYC) who moved to Havana, Cuba when I was 2 1/2 years old, lived there until a few days after Castro took over and vamoosed it out of that country as fast as my legs would carry me! I was on a forced hiatus from the UofM, due to illness. From there my sister, mother and I went to NYC to work and my father went to Haiti in Port-Au-Prince, where he and my uncle had purchased some tiny cocoa plantations & a chocolate factory - for the choccolate liquer - to make baking chocolate (the real bitter stuff). We joined my father about 2 months later where I spent 2 of the most carefree & wonderful years of my life! It is the stuff that movies are made of! (A la Grace Kelly - even my clothes were like hers)>  I then continued my studies in upstate NY and hated it because it was too, too cold!:( Went back to NYC to work and see what I wanted to do with my life - I was all of 20 years old and had to drop out of school because of illness and then because of the weather! Yuck - so I got a job in a Textile Buying Office as a receptionist and soon I found myself buying trimmings! Loved it and was very happy with the work I was doing. However, I got an offer from two young guys who had a factory in Cleveland, Ohio, where they made Maternity Clothes and they wanted me to be in charge of the shipping dept, keep inventory and in my spare time - help with the designing!! I couldn't pass it up - the offer sounded so great and the salary was twice what I was making in the NYC. So I went to Cleveland, got married, had both my children and got a divorce 15 years later. Then my children and I moved to South Florida and have been here since 1978, I can't count that far back :) Learned how to do taxes with H&R Block and worked simultaneously as a Supervisor in 2 offices for them for 15 years. Then after the accident everything went spiralling downwards until I could no longer walk alone even with a walker - so the next step was a wheelchair. Stayed at home with a lot of help (nurses, PT therapists) fixed the bathroom so I could bathe myself and fixed the kitchen so I could help warm-up meals (was taught how to cook in rehab) and so forth and so on. However, the fire department had other plans for me, I called them too often to pick me up off the floor - how embarassing! So they gave me a choice - either a home or they would have to call HRS! :( (very sad) It was there, in my home where I was robbed! <img title=Cry src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-cry.gif border=0 alt=Cry /> All my cookbooks (all my Julia Childs Cookbooks, my Settlement Cookbook which had been my mothers - published in 1939 - with all her notes) my mother's cookbooks from Cuba & Haiti, all my handwritten recipes. They also took all my Delft collection, some antiques that I had in the kitchen like my rolling pin, a beautiful old & used wooden bowl, a charcoal-iron that was brought north when my parents left Haiti, it was hand-painted & was gorgeous, as well as all the other things that are too numerous to mention! That proved to be the last straw & from there it was an ALF,<img title=Yell src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-yell.gif border=0 alt=Yell /> which was horrible, and then on to another home where the administrator of that home became the administrator here and voila, here I am. <img title=Smile src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-smile.gif border=0 alt=Smile /> I have a beautiful large private room with a private bath, furnished to my liking: eclectic! <img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /> My room is large enough to house my office and all the other odds and ends with which I like to surround myself. During tax season, mostly, my room is always full (of course I love it that way)! I have a blanket my daughter bought for me in New Mexico and that is on my bed. You guessed it - that is where everbody sits or on my great grandfather's arm chair which is in great shape. <img title=Smile src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-smile.gif border=0 alt=Smile /> Update 01/11/2008 that time is here again :) Have started doing taxes already and not just regular taxes but corporations, partnerships and 1040X - ammended returns! Whoopee! I love the feeling I get when this time comes around and I get into gear!!! I love it! :) The head chef, the kitchen supervisor & the dietician enjoy the recipes from Zaar; the ones that I post, as well as, the others. We are in the process of changing the menu right now - so we have been doing a lot of figuring. The administrator is so cute because every once in a while she asks for a recipe and then she gives me a pack of paper so I can print them. <img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /> I am president of the resident council and most of the family members come to me to take care of their grievances - this way I do my part - and the staff can take care of the larger problems! It has been working for 10 years - why change if it ain't broke?<img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /> Well, it's time to say hasta luego folks. <img title=Laughing src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-laughing.gif border=0 alt=Laughing />

View Full Profile