Strawberry Yogurt Mousse & Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake:
3 eggs
90 gram sugar
3 tbs milk
23 gram cocoa powder
30 gram flour
1.5 tbs vegetable oil

Strawberry yogurt mousse:
2 egg yolk
45 gram sugar
150 cc milk
9 gram gelatin + 63 cc cold water (usually gelatin: water = 1:7)
150 cc heavy cream
210 cc strawberry yogurt puree (see below for how to make it)

 

How to make the chocolate cake layer
Preparation:
*Take eggs and milk out of the fridge to keep them at a room temperature.
**Sift dry ingredients (flour and cocoa powder) in a bowl.
1. Mix eggs in a bowl and add sugar in it (while putting the bowl in hot water (optional)) and whip it all well.
2. When the mixture forms stiff peaks, add dry ingredients (flour and cocoa) to the mixture alternately with milk and vegetable oil.
3. Pour the mixture in to the cake pan (8 inch, removable bottom preferred but 9 inch should be okay.) and bake it for about 10-13 minutes at 355 °F.

How to make strawberry yogurt mousse
Preparation:
*Add cold water to gelatin in a small bowl and mix well to dissolve it.
**Make strawberry yogurt puree: If you can find strawberry puree at a store, just add yogurt (50 grams) in the puree (160 grams).
Even if you can't find the puree at a store, it's easy to make! Use strawberries or/and raspberries by following the below recipe.

1. Simmer strawberries or/and raspberries (about 130 - 140 grams) in a pot until it thickens. Add raspberry jam (2 tbs). (The total amount of the puree should be 160 grams.)
2. Cool the puree in a bowl and add yogurt (50 grams) in it.
(As long as the total amount of the puree is 210 cc, it's okay to change the ratio of the raspberries, jam and yogurt according to your preference.)
1. Mix egg yolk and sugar in a bowl.
2. Bring milk to boil in a pot and pour it slowly into the egg and sugar mixture.
3. Put the mixture back to the pot and simmer it at a low heat until it slightly thickens. (Try not to heat it up too much)
4. Remove the pot from the stove, melt in gelatin immediately and strain it into a bowl.
5. After the mixture in a bowl cools down, add strawberry yogurt puree in it.
6. Whip heavy cream in a separate bowl to the same consistency as the above strawberry yogurt mixture (I like to whip it well because the more whipped, the softer and lighter texture the mousse will be) and mix them both.
7. Pour it over the chocolate cake (cooled) in the cake pan and chill it until set for about 5-7 hours.

 (I wanted to be able to see two separate layers on the outside the cake after chilling it; however, the mousse covered all around the cake in a pan because the cake usually shrinks while cooling and there is a small gap between the cake and the pan where the mousse goes all over around while chilling to set. I simply scraped the mousse off the edge of the cake by sliding a pallet knife all around the cake...Any other suggestions or advice to avoid this situation will be very much appreciated!)

This is a vanilla cake version (recipe at Mont Blank Cake) of the same strawberry yogurt mousse cake with chocolate whipped cream (100 ml whipped cream and 40 gram melted chocolate) and vanilla whipped cream on top. The combination of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry yogurt was very good!

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Moist Pumpkin Cupcakes with Milky Vanilla Frosting with Apple Cinnamon

Chocolate Heart Cookies with Orange and Walnut Flavor

Sugary Cinnamon Blueberry and Pineapple Breakfast Mini Muffins

Muffins:
(for 24 cup mini muffin pan)

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 -1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup melted butter 
• Blueberry or/and pineapple chunks

Glaze:

• 5 tbs butter, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2/3 teaspoon cinnamon

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 - 13 minutes.

Rosy Mini Apple Tarts with Creamy Vanilla Custard

Very Strawberry Custard Tart

Ingredients:
Makes 2 7-inch tarts

Pie crust:

• 100 grams flour
• 2 grams salt
• 70 grams butter
• 35 - 40 ml cold water

Custard:

• 24 grams flour
• 60 grams sugar
• 3 egg yolk
• 300 ml milk
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla stick

(*This should make about 250 gram custard. Add the following into the 250 gram custard.)

• 80 ml whipped cream + 2 tbs powder sugar
• 3.5 grams gelatin, dissolved in 24.5 ml water (for soft custard, add a little more than half)

Strawberries:

• About 2- 3 regular packages of strawberries for 2 tarts

Nappage (cake glaze):

• 15 ml water
• 8 grams sugar
• 1 grams gelatin + 7 ml water

Preparation: Wash strawberries well and cut each half. Let them dry on a paper towel.

How to make pie crust:

1. Combine flour, salt, butter in a food processor. 
2. When the mixture is mixed like coarse meal, with small size pieces of butter, add water gradually.
3. Stop adding water when the dough holds together. (adding too much water makes the crust tough.)
4. Take dough out of the machine and cover it with plastic wrap.
5. Refrigerate about 30 minutes to 1 hour or longer.
6. Take it out from the refrigerator and roll out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface to about 10 inch circle.
7. Place the dough onto a 7-inch pie pan and trim the dough to within a half inch of the edge of the pie dish.
8. Pre-bake the dough with pie weight at 370 °F for 10 minutes and bake without pie weights at 355°F for another 7-10 minutes. (line the pie crust with parchment paper and fill it with pie weights till about 2/3 height of the pie pan)

How to make custard:

1. Put flour, sugar and egg yolk in a bowl and add a little bit of milk (about 2 tbs from 300 milk) into the bowl and mix all together.
2. Heat the rest of the milk and bring to a boil.
3. Add the milk SLOWLY into the egg mixture in a bowl and mix it all together.
4. Return to the pot or a put it into a double boiler, stir gently and slowly with a spatula until it thickens, over a low heat for a regular pot/a medium high for a double boiler (I use a double boiler, which makes it a lot easier to make smooth custard).
5. Transfer the custard into a bowl and cool it by putting the bowl of custard in a ice water in a separate bowl. 
6. Cover the surface of the custard with plastic wrap. When it's ready and cool, the plastic wrap will come off clean.

Finishing:

1. Pour the cooled custard into the baked, cooled pie crust and let it stay for for about 3-5 minutes (in fridge if the custard isn't still too soft).
2. Make nappage (see below) and let it cool a little bit and decorate the pie with strawberries.
3. Brush the strawberries with nappage and enjoy!

How to make nappage (make this right when decorating the pie with strawberries):

1. Dissolve gelatin in water.
2. Microwave water and sugar for about 15- 20 seconds and add the gelatin, stirring until dissolved.
3. Let nappage cool down a little bit. When nappage is just warm not hot or cold is the best time to brush the fruit with it (if it's hot, it won't stay on fruit but if it's cold, it'll get too hard to brush). If nappage gets cold and hard, microwave it again to the right temperature.