CLOUD FOREST, WHITE CHOCOLATE AND RASPBERRY MOUSSE CAKE

Prep Time: 1h10 Cooking Time: 0h35m Serves:

The taste of summer. You only have to look at this to be transported to fields of long grasses waving with wild flowers, kissed by the summer sun.

Ingredients

Cloud Forest cake

180g 100% cacao. Try Venezuelan Black, Rio Caribe100% cacao. (If you want to use 70% cocoa chocolate, use 260g of it and reduce the sugar to 100g)

250g unsalted butter

175g raw cane sugar

6 eggs

100g ground almonds

White chocolate mousse

150g Willie’s Cacao El Blanco white chocolate

250g double cream

3 eggs

Raspberry mousse

250g very ripe fresh raspberries

100g raw cane sugar

2 sheets leaf gelatine

2 egg whites, at room temperature

300ml double cream

Decorate with freeze dried raspberry powder of fresh raspberries

Equipment: 25cm springform cake tin and baking paper

Method

To make the Cloud Forest Cake

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Lightly grease, then line the base and sides of the cake tin with baking paper so it comes right up to the top of the tin
Beat the eggs with the sugar until doubled in size.
Melt the chocolate and the butter in a bowl over hot water, stirring constantly and making sure the bowl does not touch the water. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Beat the eggs with the sugar until light, thick and creamy.
Stir the chocolate and butter mixture into the eggs and sugar.
Carefully fold in the ground almonds until evenly mixed through
Tip the mixture into the prepared cake tin up to about 2 cm deep
Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until slightly risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and leave in the tin, on a wire rack, to cool.

To make the White chocolate Mousse

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over hot water, stirring constantly and making sure the bowl does not touch the water and does not get too hot. Set aside to cool a little while you beat the cream.
Lightly beat the cream and fold 2 table spoons of it into the chocolate to loosen it.
Beat the egg yolks until pale in colour then fold them into the chocolate, followed by the rest of the cream.
Beat the egg whites so they form soft peaks, then fold these into the rest of the mixture
Put the whole mixture on top of the cooled cake so it is about 2 cm deep, then put it in the fridge to set for about half an hour.

To make the Raspberry Mousse

Purée the raspberries in a blender with the sugar and pass through a sieve into a bowl
Soak the gelatine leaves in a shallow dish of cold water to soften for five minutes or so.
In a small saucepan, bring half the raspberry purée to the boil and take off the heat. Drain the gelatine leaves and squeeze out excess water, then add to the hot but not boiling purée, stirring until dissolved. Now stir in the remaining cold raspberry purée. Leave to cool completely.
Beat the cream until they are thick, with soft peaks, but not stiff
Beat the egg whites into soft peaks, but don’t let them go hard.
When the raspberry mixture is cool, fold the cream into it.
Then stir in a couple of table spoons of egg whites, before carefully folding in the rest in a couple of stages.
Check the white chocolate mousse layer is set then put this in on top so it is also about 2 cm deep. Return to the fridge to set for about half an hour.
When it is set, and you are ready to serve it, remove from the tin and decorate with fresh raspberries or a dusting of freeze dried raspberry powder.