Recipe: Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake

Recipes seem to be getting popular, so updating how many are posted to three days a week. Hopefully everyone can find something they like. Today, is something a little different.


Recipe:

Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake





3 ounces chocolate (I used 82% Dark)
1 medium Haas Avocado
2 cups half/half, or light cream (You can use heavy cream for a heavier mousse, but it is a lot more calories)
16 ounces cream cheese
4 eggs (exclude egg whites if you want the mousse to be more dense)
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp vanilla extract
Sweetener if desired of your choice (Without a sweetener it isn't bad, but traditional mousse usually has sugar, so I would recommend some, to taste of course)

Optional Topping:
Fruit of choice (I chose an orange)
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp nutmeg


1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Allow cream cheese to soften by leaving it out while preparing other ingredients.
2. Prepare avocado by removing seed and scooping out inside, whisk until all lumps are gone.
3. Melt chocolate, with your preferred method. (Microwave on low power, double boiler, or slow cooker).
4. Whip cream, adding vanilla, and sweetener, until it starts to thicken, (it will take longer with light cream).

5. Add avocado, cream cheese, eggs, chocolate, and salt to cream. Continue whipping for approximately five minutes.
6. Pour in spring form pan, and place in water bath, in oven for 90 minutes. After 90 minutes, open oven, turn off heat and let sit for 30 minutes. Then place in refrigerator, for final cooling, at least 30 minutes.
7. Optional: Segment an orange, making sure to squeeze the orange into a bowl with the segments. Add nutmeg and ginger, stirring. Pour liquid over mousse, and decorate as desired.

Recipe Thursday: Chocolate Covered Bacon-Roses

Less of a recipe, and more of an attempt to do something different that others have started online. I wanted to take it a step further though, and you can't go too wrong with dark chocolate for valentine's day.  A few hours early, but I wanted people to have the chance to replicate this if they felt like it.

Thursday Recipe:

Chocolate Covered Bacon Roses

The ingredient list is very short, and it actually only consists of two food items. Chocolate and Bacon, and both of those are the choice of the maker. I chose a 82% dark chocolate and regular bacon, though you can use thick bacon, darker, or more sweet chocolate. The process would still be the same.

1. Get the tools needed. There is several ways to do this, but the bacon needs a way to drain while cooking. You can get a pan like I did, or drill holes in a cheap pan, or possibly make some aluminum foil molds with holes to drain. I also used wooden skewers to make sure the bacon was clear in the center, to better facilitate staying on the stems.

 

2. Wrap the bacon around the skewers. To get the right look it might take some practice, but make sure you wrap more near the top, and have it taper down. To keep it together, I tied one end with butchers twine, to allow it to seem more flared when cooked. Important to make sure you don't wrap it too tightly, or too lose.

 3. Let the Bacon cook. It took mine about 45-50 minutes at 350 degrees, before I was comfortable with how it looked. I removed from the oven, let cool for a few minutes then transferred to the refrigerator wrapped in paper towels to absorb extra grease.

4. After cooled, i made sure that the wooden skewer ends were the right lengths, and the bacon was well cooked.


5. Use your preferred method for melting chocolate, (double boiler, slow cooker, low power microwave) until the chocolate is creamy. Once it is, dip and swirl the bacon in the chocolate until it is well covered.  Place on a piece of parchment, or wax paper so it doesn't stick. Let cool for 10-15 minutes, before moving to a different spot on the paper (to avoid pooling) and then place in the refrigerator for chocolate to harden.





6. Disassemble flowers, keeping the important stems. (I got the flowers from Walmart for $3.00) Clean and wash before attaching cooled and chocolate covered flowers to your nice stems.