Chocolate Marquise

Challenges are exciting!  Food challenges?  Well, they’re beyond exciting!    Food challenges makes me anxious, in a good kind of way.  My thoughts turn to them every waking hour and I’ll be constantly searching for inspiration at every opportunity.  And sometimes, the searching and the planning gets the better of me that I’m concocting some massive production in my head and I’m knocked back to reality with a holler from the other room…”MUM!  S won’t share!” or “MUM, we need batteries for the Wii remote!” or MUM, there’s a spider in the bathroom!”   Yada yada yada yada!”   Yeah. Welcome to my world.  Where serenity is a luxury, but where chocolates provide harmony amongst the living creatures.    As long as everyone shares, that is!

But before you all get sucked into a vertigo of domestic chaos and parenting pandemonium, here’s a chocolate marquise dessert that takes control and restraint out of your vocabulary .  Word of caution: for serious chocoholics only.    This chocolate awesomeness is an indulgent dessert of 14 eggs and a whopping 1.6lbs (750g) of dark and bitter chocolate wickedness.  Totally synchronised with this month's Sweet Adventures Blog Hop theme - Death by Chocolate!

Chocolate marquise is simply chocolate mousse, layered with some chocolate sponge cake and chilled before serving!  Served with a dollop of whipped cream and fresh raspberries!  Indulgence to the extreme!

The recipe is adapted from The Golden Book of Chocolate published by McRae Books.   There were some kinks in the recipe, but negligible at this point.  But may be worthwhile to point out to the publishers at a later time.  In the meantime, let's enjoy this truly "death-by-chocolate" dessert attempt.  This recipe has 2 parts: sponge cake and mousse.  Takes a bit of time, but the rewards are worth it! 

The sponge cake:

150g plain flour

4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

4 large eggs

3 large eggs, separated

100g caster sugar

750g of chocolate heaven - Ghirardelli bitter sweet, Nestle Plaistowe Couverture and some Nestle dark chocolate melts

Preheat oven to 180*C.  Grease a 30x40cm jelly roll pan or cookie sheet with sides and line with baking paper.

Whisk the flour and cocoa in a medium sized bowl.

In a large bowl with a hand-held beater or a whisk by hand, beat the eggs and egg yolk until creamy. Set aside.

Using a stand mixer, beat the egg whites and sugar until soft peaks form.

Fold in the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture.  

Add in the flour and cocoa mixture in 2 batches, gently folding and stirring after each addition.

Spread the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula.

Bake in the oven until springy to the touch, about 10 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool completely.

The mousse:

250ml milk

75g caster sugar

8 large egg yolks

600g dark chocolate, chopped

150g bitter sweet chocolate, chopped

250ml whipped cream

unsweetened cocoa for dusting

Using a stand mixer or in a large bowl with a hand-held beater, beat the egg yolks and sugar until pale and creamy.

In a medium sauce pan, bring the milk to a boil.  

Pour half the milk into the egg mixture and continue beating.

Pour the custard mixture back into the pan and return to medium to low heat.  

Using a heat proof spatula, stir continuously until it coats the back of a metal spoon.  (While stirring make sure the heat is on low-medium and not too hot that it'll immediately cook the eggs.  Then you'll get an egg-smelling custard and scrambled eggs in there. To avoid this, lift the pan from the heat every so often while stirring and putting it back on the heat).

The custard coats the back of a metal spoon and stays on without dripping when you run your finger through.

  Place the chopped chocolates in a large glass bowl, then pour the hot custard on top.

Stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.

Chocolate mousse in action!

Cover and refrigerate until cool.

Gently fold in the whipped cream, set aside until ready to use.

Assembly:

Line a 23x12cm loaf pan with baking paper.

Cut the sponge in rectangular strips so that it fits inside the 23x12cm pan (we've cut the sponge cakes smaller so that it fits with a bit of space on the sides of the pan, hence we had left bits and pieces which the girls consumed with gusto!)
 

Sponge cake cutting section

Place one strip of the sponge cake in the pan.

Cover with 1cm layer of mousse.  Cover with a layer of sponge and gently press down.

First there was mousse.  and then there was cake.

Repeat until all the mousse and sponge are in the pan.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Snug as a bug in a rug.  Chocolate mousse showing off!

To serve, turn onto a plate and dust with cocoa.  To slice the marquise cake, run your knife through hot water and wipe dry with a kitchen towel then slice.  Warm the knife with every slice.

Serve with a dollop of whipped cream and some fresh raspberries!

There's a bonus here too!  Since we've cut off the sides and ate bits and pieces of the cake, we had extra chocolate mousse to indulge in!  Oh yeah!  Did I mention this month's theme is death by chocolate?

chocolate mousse with fresh raspberries!

Sweet. Indulgent. Chocolate. Mousse. Heaven.

Thank you to the hostesses behind the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop: 84th and 3rd, Dining with a Stud, the capers of the kitchen crusader, Delicieux and this month's host The Hungry Australian!

This is a blog hop!  So why don't you skip on down to all these gorgeous chocolate deliciousness and be inspired to make, bake and eat your way into chocolate heaven!