Strawberry Mousse filled Cake

Today is my Maid "Mary's" Birthday. Its going to be a year tomorrow since she has been with us. She has been a great help to our family. She is just 24 but already a mother of twins who are 5 years now:) In Filipinos being a mother at very young age is quite common. It was a very tough decision for me to chose a maid here in Singapore, because have heard a lot of stories about their character. Last year I interviewed many maids & some how found Mary to be the right one for our home. In fact I had made a right choice of choosing her I guess:).  She is a good girl & comes froma good family background, My important condition was that she needs to take very good care of Zion & that is being done without doubt. Zion loves her & they share a good chemistry. I dont treat her like maid but have treated her like a family member. She gets to eat all that we eat. I make sure that she is comfortable & support her whenver she needs any financial help. Afterall she is just like us.

I know of many people within family & friends who treat their maids as slaves. I have even seen people not giving them food to eat ,abusing etc.. I feel so sad to see & hear of such news. I strongly feel that what you do is what you get back. If you take good care of them they will take good care of u. Ah... I think too much gyan on Maids:) Now coming back to the Birthday celebration. I baked chocolate cake & filled it with fresh Strawberry mousse. I did a very simple decoration with whipped cream. We just cut the cake & had it now after Breakfast. For some reason the Strawberry was tasting like Guava:( I couldnt feel much of Strawberry taste in the cake. Nevertheless the cake tasted good! This is how I made it.

I have devided this into 4 Steps

1. Chocolate cake recipe- Step1
2. Mousse filling recipe- Step 2
3. Decoration recipe- Step 3
4. Assembling the cake- Step 4

Step1
For chocolate cake
Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar (Powdered)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup Cocoa powder
• 1 Tspn baking powder
• 1/2 tspn baking soda
• 3 eggs
• 75 gms butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4  cup hot water
• 1/4 Tsp salt

Method:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 9-inch square baking pan.
2. Cream together butter, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla essence for 2 to 3 mins.
3. Now sift all the dry ingredients & add it to the wet ingredients.
4.  Add the hot water to this mixture & beat it on medium speed for a minute
5. Beat the egg white to soft peaks & fold in the egg whites into the cake batter with a spatula. Arounf 6 to 8 folds should be enough. Do not over mix.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan & bake for 30 to 45 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Now cut the cake into 3 layers & frost with Starwberry mousse.
7. (I made a small cake so I cut the cake into small square & made 4 layers of cake & 3 layers of mousse filling)

Step2:

Strawberry Mousse filling & decoration

 

Ingredients for Mousse

• 1.5 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup fresh chopped Strawberries
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1/4 tspn of salt
• 1/4 cup Icing sugar Sifted
• 1 Tbsp Gelatine (Mix this well in 1/4 cup of hot water)

 

Method:

1. Beat the whipping cream to stiff peaks along with icing sugar.
2. In a blender add in the strawberries & sugar. Make a Puree out of this & set aside.
3. Now mix the gelatine into the starberry puree & mix this to the whipped cream. Use a spoon or spatula to mix this well.
4. Now refrigerate this for about 2 to 4 hours for it to set. Once its set you can fill the cake with this.

 

Step-3

Ingredients for decoration.

• 1 Cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 cup Icing sugar
• Method:

1. Beat the whipping cream to stiff peaks along with icing sugar.
2. Once they are done fill a piping bag with this & use any piping tip to decoration. I used the big star tip for this simple decoration.

Step- 4

Assembling the cake:

• Cut each cake into 3 layers 
• Fill 1 inch mousse on top of each layer evenly with a help of spatula.
• Once all the layers are done, Use the whipped cream to decorate the outer layer of cake.

Here is my Maid "Mary" with zion

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#27