Chocolate Mousse Cake ~ Chocolate Covered Strawberries

I have been wanting to make a cake for a while and yesterday was my cousins Birthday! So I thought... why not make him a birthday cake! So I decided to make a chocolate cake, filled with chocolate mousse and topped with chocolate covered strawberries. It looked really good and I wanted to eat the whole thing, but unfortunately I told them I was bringing it over so I couldn't have showed up with no cake at all. I brought it over and he opened the door and we started to sing him Happy Birthday! He absolutely loved the cake and so did his family.

Chocolate Cake:

1 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa
2 Cups Boiling Water2 1/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
2 TB Baking Soda1/2 Tsp. Salt1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda
1 Cup Butter, Softened
2 Cups Sugar
4 Eggs
1 Tsp. Vanilla

Preheat oven to 350*F. In a small mixing bowl combine cocoa and boiling water together and whisk until smooth, Set aside and cool to room temperature. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda together and set aside. In a large bowl cream the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla together until light, about 5 minutes. Stir in flour mixture (in fourths) and alternate with the cocoa mixture (in thirds). Beginning and ending with flour. Do not over beat.

Chocolate Mousse:

Makes 18 servings. Preparation time 20 minutes.

12 ounces (345 grams) bittersweet or semisweet

chocolate, cut into small pieces
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in small pieces
6 large eggs, separated
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
9 tablespoons sugar, divided1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup (360 ml) heavy whipping cream

In a medium-sized stainless steel bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, melt the chocolate and butter. Remove from heat and set aside to cool for a few minutes. Then whisk in the two egg yolks. Refrigerate while you whip the egg whites and whipping cream.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), whip the two egg whites with the cream of tartar until foamy. Gradually add two

tablespoons of sugar and continue to beat unti

l stiff peaks form, yet the whites are still glossy and not dry. Set aside.

In another bowl, whip the heavy cream, remaining one tablespoon sugar, and vanilla extract until soft peaks form.

Remove the chocolate mixture from the refrigerator, and stir a couple of spoonfuls of the beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture

to lighten it, and then fold the remaining whites into the chocolate mixture, gently but thoroughly. Fold in the whipped cream.

Spoon the chocolate mousse into six individu

al serving dishes or glasses. Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours. If you just want to make the mousse and not put it on a cake then you can serve it with whipped cream, or chocolate shavings or strawberries.


Chocolate Covered Strawberries:
Basically all I did for the strawberries was

I got about 2/3 of a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and about a 1/4 cup of butter and melted it together is a sauce pan until it was warm and runny. The chocolate can't be thick or the strawberries will not coat easily in the chocolate. I dipped the strawberries and laid them on parchment paper to dry for the next day. I left the stems on and tried to dry them upside down but that didn't work very well so I just gave up and put them on their sides.