Chocolate Gingerbread Mousse Cake
This is one of the old twimii recipes. It’s good and very very rich – definitely a diet-be-damned dessert. Also I made a gluten free biscuit base this time. Enjoy!
This is an updated and corrected version of an old twimii recipe. I have halved the creamy ingredients to try and make this a tiny bit healthier and I also added in egg whites (before it was just egg yolks) – this does make it *slightly* healthier but really I did it here so as to avoid wasting the egg whites. I used the gluten-free biscuit base I used in the Bitter Toffee Pecan Pie and it worked really well so I’m giving that as a gluten-free option here. I tried reducing the butter to 50g rather than 75g, to be honest it does taste better with the 75g so I’m sticking with that quantity.
When I came up with this in 2012 I tried making it in a springform tin that absolutely refused to spring. There was a clasp thing that you could release to remove the bottom but I could never get the damn thing to work once there was a cake in it. These days I have a few tins where the bottom of tin easily separates from the base, they’re separate, you just place the base inside the upper bit – they’re great, simple to use.
The way I got the idea for this was that while I was coming up with the bloody mess cake from the taste of the dark chocolate, melted into the butter, molasses, golden syrup, ginger and cinnamon I used it in that. As soon as I tasted it I knew I had to add it to something else where it’s the main flavour. I just love that flavour and so I used it in this and in the chocolate gingernuts. Really will have to get a gluten-free version of them.
There is one problem with this dessert – the way it looks. When you add the melted chocolate mix into the cream and marscarpone the chocolate goes a pale shade that doesn’t look exactly mouth-watering but it tastes great and it definitely does need the cream – it’s too rich otherwise. Which is why I made sure and decorate these ones.
This works also as a mousse by itself – in case you’re not a fan of the whole biscuit base thing.
Ingredients
- 5 dark chocolate digestives
- 4 carmelised coffee biscuits
- 3 gingernuts
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 100g butter (salted)
- 10 ginger crunch cookies (gluten & dairy free - Supervalu)
- 150g pecan nuts
- 75g salted butter
- maple syrup
- pinch of ground cinnamon
- 125g marscarpone
- 125ml double cream
- 50g 70% chocolate, chopped into small pieces
- 50g unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon crude blackstrap molasses (treacle)
- 1 tablespoon golden syrup
- 2 large egg
- 1 heaped tablespoon and 1 teaspoon caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Melt the salted butter over a gentle, add the spices and remove from the heat. Turn the biscuits into crumbs - you can either put them in a bag and repeatedly bash with a rolling pin or something similar, or just put them in the food processor and blend till they're reduced to crumbs. Pour the melted butter over the crumbs and mix around well. Press down into whatever tin or dish you've decided to use. Bake in a preheated oven for 10 minutes at 200 C. Take out and leave to cool.
- Put 150g of pecan in a food processor and blend, chopping them up. Add in the cookies and blend again till you have a crumby consistency. Mix in a good pinch of cinnamon.
- Melt 75g of the butter (I think 50g is probably sufficient but this is what I did use) and pour it into the blender. Blend till well mixed.
- Taste, if not sweet enough add in some maple syrup. I added in 2 tablespoons of maple syrup last time.
- Grease a pie dish and press the biscuit base into it gently with your fingers. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200 C for 10 minutes. To ensure it holds it’s shape you can cover the base with baking paper and fill with baking beans. When it’s done take the crust out and allow to cool completely.
- Melt the unsalted butter over a gentle to moderate heat and mix in the spices, molasses and golden syrup. Stir around until all the sugar is dissolved and everything is nicely blended. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little.
- When the sugar-spice-butter mix has cooled a little but is still warm, add in the chocolate pieces and stir around till they have all melted. It is important that the mix is warm and not hot as otherwise the chocolate might sieze and it will become inedible - I learnt this making the Baby Guinness Mousse
- You will need three bowls. One for eggs whites, one for the double cream and one for the rest.
- Separate your eggs. Add a heaped tablespoon of caster sugar to the egg yolks and whisk until they are a creamy buttery colour and thickened. Whip the marscarpone into this mixture. When everything is blended, with a spatula fold in the chocolate mix.
- Add a teaspoon of caster sugar to the egg whites and whisk until they form soft peaks.
- In the third deep bowl, whisk the double cream until it begins to thicken, then add in vanilla extract and whip until it forms very soft peaks. Be careful not to over-whisk the cream as it turns a little sour if you do
- With a spatula take a some of the double cream add it to the chocolate mix and fold in.
- Repeat until you have folded all of the cream into the chocolate-cheese mix. Then fold the egg whites in the same way until full mixed in.
- Spoon the mousse over the biscuit base and leave in the fridge for at least 8 hours or
- preferably overnight. It's really important to leave it rest and chill that long as it the taste is more mellow after this time.
