Recipe Wednesday: Death by Chocolate

Layers of chocolate cake and chocolate mousse covered with warm chocolate ganache and vanilla Chantilly cream. Treat your mom to this amazing dessert this Mother's Day!

Death by Chocolate

Dark Chocolate Cake

Yield 3 - 9 inch round pans
Ingredients
2 cups boiling water
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2-1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate Mousse Filling (recipe below)
Chocolate Ganache (recipe below)
Vanilla Chantilly Cream (recipe below)
Raspberries (recipe below)

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grease 3 - 9 inch round cake pans, line bottom of pan with parchment and grease.
3. In medium bowl, pour boiling water over cocoa, and whisk until smooth. Let mixture cool.
4. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
5. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
6. Beat in eggs one at time, then stir in vanilla extract.
7. Add the flour mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture. Spread batter evenly between the 3 prepared pans.
8. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, use clean straw test. Cool for 10 minutes, turn out on cooling racks and cool completely.
9. Allow to cool on racks.

Chocolate Mousse Filling
Ingredients
3 cups heavy cream
12 oz semisweet chocolate, cut in pieces
Preparation
1. In saucepan, heat 1 cup cream. Add chocolate; whisk to melt. Heat over low heat, about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Set aside to cool.
2. Whip remaining 2 cups of heavy cream until stiff. Gently fold in chocolate mixture.
3. Pour into bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and vent. Chill.

Chocolate Ganache
Yield: Enough to cover a three layer, 9” cake.
Ingredients
16 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, cut into small pieces
1-1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 Tbsp cognac or brandy (optional)
Preparation
1. Place the chopped chocolate in a medium sized stainless steel bowl. Set aside.
2. Heat the cream and butter in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil.
3. Immediately pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Stir with a whisk until smooth.
4. If desired, add the liqueur.

Vanilla Chantilly Cream
Ingredients
2 cups heavy cream
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preparation
1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla extract together on high speed until soft peaks form in the mixture. Chill.

Presentation – large layer cake
1. Chill cake layers and mousse filling in the refrigerator.
2. Brush any loose crumbs from the cake layers.
3. Place one cake on a wire rack, over a shallow pan. Cover with a layer of mousse filling. Place the second cake layer on top, cover with a layer of mousse filling then top with the third cake layer.
4. Crumb coat the cake: Using a cake spatula, cover the sides and top of the cake with about 4 tablespoons ganache. This is called a crumb coat and seals in any cake crumbs so that your cake will have a smooth finish. Refrigerate cake for 15 minutes to set the crumb coat.
5. To cover cake, pour the remaining ganache into the center of the cake. Working quickly, spread with a spatula, using big strokes to push the ganache over the sides of the cake, to create an even coating of ganache. If there are any bare spots on sides of cake, cover with leftover ganache. Strain leftover ganache to remove any crumbs. At this point the leftover ganache can be refrigerated until cold so you can make truffles. Or it can be whipped with an electric hand mixer or whisk and then piped to decorate the cake.
6. Serve garnished with Vanilla Chantilly Cream.

Variation: fill cake with Chocolate Mousse and refrigerate. Keep Chocolate ganache warm and pour over cake slices when served.