Blackberry and White Chocolate Mousse Cake

It is the season for blackberries and it's also Lundulph's birthday once again. And so, it had to be a blackberry cake this year, from a recipe I received from my Mum. It looked really pretty in the photo, so without delay I got going.

Ingredients
Base
400 g marzipan at 38% almond content
2 large eggs
4 tbsp cocoa powder
zest from 1 lemon

Blackberry mousse
5 dl blackberries
1.5 sachet vegegel
3 large pasteurised yolks
1.5 dl granulated sugar
3 dl whipping cream

White Chocolate mousse
150 g white chocolate
2.5 dl whipping cream
2 yolks

Decorations
Extra large blackberries
Grated white chocolate

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 °C fan, then prepare a Springform cake tin of about 20 cm diameter by greasing and lining with baking paper. The edge of the paper should be a couple of cm above the edge of the Springform.
2. Grate the marzipan into a large bowl. Break and lightly whisk the eggs in a side bowl, then add to the marzipan, a little at a time until the mixture is smooth.
3. Stir in the cocoa and lemon zest, then spread into the cake tin and level it with a spatula, it should be around 2 cm thick.
4. Bake the cake base for 12 - 15 minutes until it starts coming away from the edges and looks dry on top. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
5. Place the blackberries in a fine sieve over a bowl. Then using a spoon mash and press out as much juice as possible, about 2.5 dl.
6. Whisk the pasteurised yolks with the sugar until light and fluffy. Whip the cream separately to stiff peaks.
7. Stir in the vegegel into half of the blackberry juice, then pour into the remaining juice.
8. Working quickly, pour the juice mixture into the egg mixture and fold in.
9. Finally fold in the whipped cream into the egg mixture and pour over the cooled down cake base.
10. Cover with cling film and chill until it sets.
11. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place in a heatproof bowl.
12. Place 1 dl of the cream in a small pot along with the yolks and heat up until it bubbles, while stirring constantly.
13. Remove from the heat when it begins to thicken and pour over the chopped chocolate.
14. Stir until all the chocolate has melted and been incorporated into the mixture, which should have cooled down.
15. Whip the remaining cream to stiff peaks, then fold into the chocolate mixture.
16. Pour over the blackberry mousse, level and chill for at least 1 h until it has firmed up a little.
17. Just before serving, carefully remove from the Springform cake tin and remove the lining paper.
18. Arrange the extra large blackberries on top and sprinkle the grated white chocolate.

As happens with many recipes, this one was clearly not tested by the magazine that published it, nor was it reviewed by someone with baking experience, because I had to double the mixture for the cake base or I would not have been able to cover the base of the cake form. So the amounts above are about right.

The blackberry mousse was really nice, but again, the proportions were wrong once more, so I had to adjust on the fly and got lucky. The white chocolate mousse on the other hand seemed OK, however it tasted more of whipped cream than chocolate, so I'd say 200 g or even 250 g of white chocolate might be better. However the overall cake tasted nice as it is.

And as the family came to celebrate, this cake was much appreciated and very little remained from it at the end. Because of the grated chocolate, it's not a cake for candles. Lundulph wanted candles, otherwise it wouldn't be a birthday cake, so he had a couple on the side. And he was well happy about the marzipan base. It was nicely crunchy.