Mousse Cake With Mirror Icing: Step-by-step Cooking Recipes With Photos And Videos

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-17 22:26

Mousse cake with mirror icing: 4 sweet recipes

If the Oscars were awarded to sweets, the mousse cakes would no doubt have amassed an impressive collection of gilded figurines. A juicy biscuit, a cloud of airy mousse with an appetizing surprise in the form of a crunchy crumble or sweet confry inside, and on top of all this splendor there is a shiny mirror glaze or, if a professional gets down to business with a culinary spray gun in hand, fleecy velor. A real masterpiece of taste! Believe me, such a cake is worth spending time, effort, and a certain amount on its preparation.

Content

• 1 Mousse Perfection

  • 1.1 Gallery of mousse cakes with mirror icing
  • 1.2 What is mousse and how is it prepared
  • 1.3 Glamorous glaze
  • 1.4 Video: how to make invert syrup for glaze

• 2 Recipes for making mousse cakes

  • 2.1 Bake a biscuit

    • 2.1.1 Honey crust for classic cake with berries
    • 2.1.2 Soft Pumpkin Pie Biscuit
    • 2.1.3 Savoyardi for the Three Chocolates cake
    • 2.1.4 Video: dacquoise for chocolate cake with nuts

  • 2.2 Cooking the filling

    • 2.2.1 Berry cream
    • 2.2.2 Video: Cherry Confry
    • 2.2.3 Crispy nut layer
    • 2.2.4 Video: how to make a parlina
  • 2.3 Knock down the mousse
  • 2.4 Dessert assembly order

  • 2.5 Two glaze options

    • 2.5.1 Video: Universal Mirror Glaze Recipe
    • 2.5.2 Simplified method of preparing glaze
  • 2.6 Video: Heart Coffee Mousse Cake

• 3 Ways to decorate mousse cakes - photo gallery

  3.1 Video: how to decorate a mousse cake

Mousse perfection

While the whole world enthusiastically devoured the cream-coated "Napoleon" and "Sacher" cakes on holidays or savored the tender "Tiramisu", European pastry chefs worked in the sweat of their brows, inventing what would be so special to amaze the audience satiated with classic desserts. And they did not waste their time in vain, since through their efforts such a miracle of culinary thought as a mousse cake appeared, which in one fell swoop broke all stereotypes about how this delicacy should look like.

First of all, the mousse cake has only one crust, which serves as the basis for the entire dessert. This role is usually played by the "king of baking" biscuit: classic, vanilla, honey, chiffon, marzipan. It happens to be at the base of delicacies and chocolate brownie, and exquisite dacquoise walnut crust, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and almond Gioconda, and even shortbread dough.

A lush head of mousse rises above the biscuit - fruit, berry, nut, cream, chocolate or coffee. And inside the eater, a filling of waffle crumbs, nuts, chocolate, custard or gelatin-thickened fruit and berry puree awaits. It all depends on the intention of the pastry chef.

Cake, filling and mousse - "three whales" of the famous dessert

However, mousse cakes are famous not only for their exquisite flavor and texture combinations, but also for their spectacular appearance, so none of them can be considered complete without an impressive coating. We will not talk about velor desserts this time, they can only be made with the help of special devices, which does not make sense to shell out for if you are not a professional chef. But about the mirror glaze, which turns the dessert either into a huge Christmas tree toy, or into an exquisite lollipop, we will mention. She's definitely worth it.

Mousse cake is not an easy treat. Depending on the recipe, it can take from 2–3 hours to a day to cook (keep in mind that most of the mousse cakes "come to condition" in the refrigerator for 8–12 hours). Not possessing sufficient skill, it is difficult to master such work in one sitting, so beginners can use the experience of the author of the article. Since the eternal workload, multiplied by no less eternal laziness and a little carelessness, did not allow the creator of this opus to devote several hours in a row to baking, the idea came to break the preparation of the cake into stages. So on the first day, a biscuit was born, on the second, fruit confri was prepared and frozen for the filling, on the third, the mousse was whipped and the cake was assembled, and on the fourth it was time for icing. As a result, the dessert got to the table on time, although not without some overlays.

Gallery of mousse cakes with mirror glaze

Two cakes are no longer a classic, but also a perfectly acceptable option.

If you get a spectacular shape, the cake will turn out even more beautiful.

Confry, coolie, compote - there are a lot of filling options

Mousse cakes have an impressive look

Design plays a significant role

Does it look delicious?

It's not for nothing that mousse desserts are gaining popularity

Such a delicacy will do honor to any hostess.

A real work of art!

What is mousse and how is it prepared

Although the cake is nominally the base of the dessert, the exponentially growing popularity of cakes is based on a completely different component. Namely, on a sweet mousse, which is knocked down on the basis of heavy cream, curd cheese or custard. Almost always, it contains gelatin, thanks to which the sweet cloud gains elasticity and easily holds a given shape, without losing one of its main qualities - lightness.

The exact composition of the mousse depends on the tastes of the chef or eaters for which he creates his treat, but it is not recommended to choose ingredients at random. Do not forget that the filling will be located inside the mousse, which should be combined with it to taste, so it is better for inexperienced chefs not to experiment in this matter, but to follow the recipe exactly.

Glamor glaze

If mirror glaze is not the most significant flavor component of a mousse cake, then its role in the design of the dessert is difficult to overestimate. It is she who gives the delicacy that very impressive look that will make the guests unanimously let out a sigh of admiration.

Sometimes a second layer is applied on top of the first layer of the base glaze, which allows you to create spectacular stains on the surface of the cake.

Mirror glaze differs from the usual cookery glaze, which usually covers homemade cakes, in several ways:

• it is really mirrored, that is, glossy and shiny, reminiscent of molten glass;
• it requires a certain heating temperature, which most cooks recommend not to try to determine "by eye", but to use a culinary thermometer;
• it is not applied with a spatula or spatula, but is carefully poured onto the cake from above, having previously installed it on a grid with a substrate.

Typically, mirror glaze includes glucose (invert) syrup or molasses. And also water, condensed milk, sugar, chocolate, cocoa, cream, vanilla, dye and whatever the chef wants to add to it.

Video: how to make invert syrup for glaze

Mousse cake recipes

Before moving on to choosing a recipe, we advise you to look into the kitchen and check if you have everything you need to create a mousse dessert in your arsenal. You will definitely need:

1. Silicone cake mold. You can do without a silicone one, it will just be easier to extract a delicacy prepared for glaze from this one.
2. Cake ring or a smaller diameter biscuit mold. Remember, he will have to completely hide under the mousse.
3. Small curly molds like the ones used to freeze ice for filling.
4. A mixer or blender (it is advisable to have both at hand, since it is convenient to beat mousse with a mixer, and a submersible blender will be very useful when preparing icing).
5. A culinary spatula or, at worst, a wide flat knife to spread the icing over the surface of the cake and easily transfer the cake itself from place to place.
6. Fighting spirit and smile.

As mentioned above, professionals use a special thermometer to create mirror glaze. If you have one, great. If not, act on your own. The author of this article, for example, decided that it is not worth spending money on a thing that you do not plan to use in the future. Perhaps that is why, or perhaps because of not quite straight arms (this option cannot be ruled out either), the glaze turned out to be far from being as smooth and mirror-like as the author dreamed of. Which, however, did not affect the taste of the cake in any way, so decide for yourself.

Silicone molds greatly simplify the task

And then - we offer you several options for a mousse dessert:

• classic cake with berries;
• "Sunny" pumpkin cake;
• Three Chocolates cake;
• and just a chocolate cake with nuts.

But in order not to describe anew the cooking stages common to all mousse cakes each time, we divided the article into blocks:

• baking biscuit;
• preparation of the filling;
• making mousse;
• glaze recipe;
• assembly of the cake.

Getting started?

Bake a biscuit

Although desserts based on mousse were published in the 18th-19th centuries of the last millennium, mousse cakes are a relatively young delicacy, so it's too early to talk about classics here in the traditional sense. Any mousse cake can be called conventionally classic, which includes three parts: biscuit, creamy mousse and berry filling. You will find just such a recipe below. But if you want to try a cake with a crispy nut layer inside or build it from three types of mousse, you will have such an opportunity.

Honey cake for a classic cake with berries

You will need:

• wheat flour - 150-160 g;
• egg - 1 pc.;
• butter - 7-8 g;
• honey - 20-25 g;
• sugar - 65 g;
• soda - 1 / 2 tsp.

Cooking.

1. Combine honey, butter and sugar in a saucepan or saucepan and heat over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the mass becomes homogeneous. Do not be alarmed if the mixture darkens a little during the cooking process, this is normal.

   

   When heated, the mixture darkens slightly

2. Remove the saucepan from heat, add baking soda to it and stir vigorously. There is no need to extinguish it with vinegar or lemon, the high temperature and honey will do it for you, as the foam that appears in the stewpan and the mass increasing in volume will let you know.

   

   The mass will begin to bubble and increase in size

3. Beat in the eggs, gradually add flour and knead the dough. Be careful here: you may need a little less flour than indicated in the recipe, so add it in portions and watch the consistency of the dough. As soon as it becomes elastic, the goal is achieved.

   

   After adding flour, the dough brightened

4. Roll out the dough on a floured table into a 5–7 mm thick layer.

   

   For the cake you need a cake layer 1–2 cm thick

5. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with baking paper, prick with a fork in several places and bake in an oven preheated to 180 ° for 5-10 minutes.

   

   Fork-pricked dough will not swell when baking

6. Allow the cake to cool slightly, then cut the biscuit to size.

   

   The cake is ready!

Soft sponge cake for pumpkin cake

You will need:

• wheat flour - 50 g;
• sugar - 40 g;
• eggs - 2 pcs.;
• baking powder - 1 / 2 tsp;
• butter.

Cooking.

1. Equip yourself with a mixer and beat eggs with sugar. The mass should increase in volume by about 2-3 times.

   

   Use a mixer, faster

2. Sift the flour with baking powder and add it to the egg mass, kneading the dough with a spatula from the bottom up.

   

   Sifted flour will add airiness to the dough

3. Line a baking dish with parchment paper and grease the bottom and sides with butter.

   

   Nothing will burn or stick with parchment

4. Pour the dough into a mold and place in an oven preheated to 180 ° for a quarter of an hour.

   

   The biscuit is ready if there is no dough left on it after being punctured with a toothpick

5. Allow the finished biscuit to cool thoroughly and remove from the mold.

   

   If the crust is too plump, cut it lengthwise and freeze one half

Savoyardi for "Three Chocolates" cake

It seems that a chocolate or coffee base asks for such a cake. But there will be plenty of chocolate in this dessert anyway, so we suggest you cook something different: a biscuit according to the Savoyardi dough recipe - the same one from which soft cookies for Tiramisu melt on the tongue are baked.

You will need:

• wheat flour - 50 g;
• egg - 2 pcs.;
• sugar - 50 g;
• icing sugar - 30 g;
• Baileys liqueur - 40 ml.

Preparation:

1. Break the eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. Divide the sugar in half, adding one to the yolks and the other to the whites. Beat both: whites - into a cool foam, yolks - until the sugar grains are completely dissolved.

   

   Both the white and the yolk, you need to beat well

2. Combine both masses by gently mixing them with a spatula.

   

   Stir with a spatula from top to bottom

3. Without stopping wielding a spatula, add sifted flour into the mixture.

   

   Add flour gradually

4. Prepare a baking dish: cover with parchment, oil the sides.

   

   Run well with a piece of butter on the sides of the mold

5. Transfer the dough into a plastic bag with the tip cut off (in case you do not have a piping bag with attachments) and gently, moving from the center to the edges, spiral the dough into the mold. Sprinkle it with powdered sugar.

   

   The dough can be shifted with a spoon, but it is more convenient with a bag

6. Bake the sponge cake in an oven preheated to 180 ° for 10-15 minutes, then let cool and saturate with liqueur.

   

   If you plan on serving cake to children, substitute cocoa liqueur

Video: dacquoise for chocolate cake with nuts

Cooking the filling

The most common filling for a mousse cake are, perhaps, berry-fruit creme (creme) and confri. We invite you to cook them. Together with pumpkin mousse, sea buckthorn and orange are perfectly combined, with classic creamy - almost any berry, so here you can choose to your taste. Well, for the chocolate cake, since it is decided to put dacquoise at its base, we will prepare a crispy nutty parlina. Only the Three Chocolates cake will remain without filling - its three multi-colored layers will delight you with a rich palette of flavors anyway.

Berry cream

You will need:

• fresh or frozen berries - pitted cherries, raspberries, strawberries, lingonberries, blueberries - 130 g;
• yolks - 2 pcs.;
• gelatin - 5 g;
• white chocolate, broken into small pieces - 40 g;
• sugar - 2 tbsp. l. for sweet berries and 3-4 for sour ones.

Cooking.

1. Puree the berries with a blender. If using raspberries, rub them through a sieve to get rid of pits that will spoil the consistency of the dessert and get stuck in your teeth.

   

   Choose berries according to your taste

2. Soak gelatin according to the instructions on the package, let it swell and add to the chocolate.

   

   Very handy chocolate drops specially designed for melting

3. Whisk the yolks with sugar until white.

   

   Set mixer to high speed

4. Add berry puree to the yolks, mix well and heat over low heat until thickened, without ceasing to continuously beat it intensively with a fork or whisk.

   

   It is better for inexperienced housewives to hold the puree in a water bath - this way it will definitely not burn

5. Pour the thickened berry mass into a container where gelatin with chocolate is waiting in the wings, let them stand for 1-2 minutes, beat everything with a blender and cool to room temperature.

   

   Chocolate, broken into small pieces, melts quickly in hot puree

6. Pour the cream into a plastic wrap-lined biscuit ring to create a thin layer of filling. Or do differently and arrange the berry mass into molds - this way you get figures that look good in mousse. And in fact, and in another case, the container with the berry mass will need to be placed in the freezer.

   

   Today in stores you can find forms for every occasion.

An excellent addition to the cream will be confry from the video recipe below. In this case, first of all, make confri, freeze it in a biscuit mold, and then pour cream on top and send it back to the freezer. You will have a two-layer berry filling. Alternatively, confry can also be frozen in ice cube trays.

Video: cherry confry

Crispy nut layer

You will need:

• milk chocolate - 100 g;
• butter - 1 tbsp. l.;
• puffed rice - 80 g;
• almond and hazelnut parlina - 175 g.

Cooking.

1. Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a steam bath with butter.

   

   Place a bowl of chocolate in a water bath

2. Add nutty parlina and puffed rice. Mix everything well.

   

   A treat for real sweets

3. Place the mixture on the bottom of a biscuit tin lined with cling film or parchment and freeze.

   

   All that remains is to freeze the filling

Video: how to make a parlina

Shoot down the mousse

Let's move on to the sweet "zest" of the sensational cakes - airy mousses that will crown your dessert. And since mousse, as a rule, is made according to the same scheme, we will give a recipe for its preparation in the form of a general algorithm so as not to describe the same sequence of actions four times. Uncover the mixers!

So, you will need …

For a classic cake:

• milk - 230 ml;
• cream with a fat content of 33% - 400 ml;
• white chocolate - 320 g;
• gelatin - 12 g;
• vanilla extract (can be substituted with cinnamon) - to taste.

For pumpkin cake:

• the pulp of baked in the oven and mashed pumpkin - 350-400 g;
• cream with a fat content of 33% - 500 ml;
• orange juice - 50–70 ml;
• icing sugar - 125 g;
• gelatin - 25 g.

For the Three Chocolates cake:

• dark bitter chocolate - 200 g;
• milk chocolate - 200 g;
• white chocolate - 200 g;
• milk - 120 ml;
• cream with a fat content of 33% - 900 ml;
• butter - 90 g;
• gelatin - 30 g.

For the chocolate mousse:

• dark chocolate - 150 g;
• milk - 220 ml;
• cream with a fat content of 33% - 450 ml;
• gelatin - 15 g;
• vanilla extract to taste.

Cooking.

1. First, soak the gelatin as directed by the instructions on the package.

   

   Gelatin should swell

2. Next, prepare your mousse base:

   • for classic and chocolate, boil milk with the spice of your choice, add squeezed gelatin into it, and then add white chocolate broken into small pieces and stir the mass until it becomes homogeneous;

     

     Dissolve first chocolate in milk and then gelatin

   • for pumpkin - combine pumpkin puree, orange juice, powdered sugar and loose gelatin and mix until smooth;

     

     Your dessert will be full of vitamins

   • for the cake "Three Chocolates" you will have to tinker, separately melting bitter, milk and white chocolate in different bowls, each with 30 g of butter and 60 ml of milk, and then add 1/3 of the prepared gelatin mass to all bowls.

     

     Each mousse has its own capacity

3. Whisk the pre-chilled cream until crisp peaks and stir in portions into the prepared mousse base cooled to 35-40 °. This must be done very carefully, with the movements of the scapula from top to bottom, but efficiently - you should get a homogeneous mass without streaks and inclusions.

   

   No sudden movements! Cream must not fall

Once the mousse is ready, you can move on to assembling the cake.

Dessert assembly order

Sponge cake on the table, confri and parlina in the freezer, and you have just shaken off the last drops of whipped mousse from the spatula … It's time to move on to the most interesting and crucial stage: to collect a single mouth-watering masterpiece from scattered sweet pieces. Moreover, you will not be doing this in the traditional way, starting with the base-base and ending with the top, but exactly the opposite, because the mousse cakes are stacked upside down.

1. Put some of the mousse on the bottom of the mold - about half - and put it in the freezer for 5-7 minutes so that the mousse starts to set.

   

   You only need half of the mousse at first

2. Return the mold to the table, spread the prepared filling over the slightly frozen mousse: berry confri and cream - for a classic or pumpkin cake; parline - for chocolate.

   

   If you have frozen confry in small tins, distribute it randomly over the surface of the mousse.

3. Pour the rest of the mousse over the filling.

   

   The cake is almost complete

4. Place the biscuit on top, drowning it slightly in the mousse.

   

   The biscuit should neither protrude too much from the mousse, nor drown in it.

5. Use a wide knife or spatula to remove the mousse remnants protruding above the edges, cover the mold with cling film and refrigerate for 8-12 hours. After that, the cake can be removed from the mold and turned over with the biscuit down. That's it, you can proceed to the final step - decorating the dessert with mirror glaze.

   

   It remains only to decorate

Two glaze options

The cake is almost ready, it remains to decide what kind of icing you will cover it with. We offer a choice of two options. The first recipe is classic, the same one used by professional chefs. The second glaze cannot be rightfully called a mirror glaze, but if there is no invert syrup at hand and there is no desire to cook it, you can use the “budget” variation of glaze.

Video: a universal recipe for mirror glaze

A simplified way to prepare glaze

You will need:

• water - 100 ml;
• high fat cream - 100 g;
• cocoa - 60 g;
• sugar - 175 g;
• gelatin - 12 g.

Cooking.

1. Soak gelatin according to package directions.

   

   Gelatin will give the glaze shine and viscosity

2. Pour sugar into water and heat over medium heat until the grains dissolve.

   

   While the water is boiling, the sugar has time to dissolve.

3. Let the syrup simmer, reduce heat, and simmer for another 5–8 minutes.

   

   The syrup will begin to thicken slightly

4. Add cocoa and cream, stir.

   

   Cocoa gives your icing the aroma and flavor of chocolate

5. Remove the saucepan of syrup from heat and add gelatin to it.

   

   Glaze without invert syrup is not as mirror-like, but still delicious

Video: coffee mousse cake Heart

Methods for decorating mousse cakes - photo gallery

Why not decorate the cake with marshmallows?

Curly chocolates come in handy

And here we used two layers of glaze

Dried berries? Why not?

And here a real artist has worked!

Simple and cute

Romantic motives are what you need for a birthday cake

Gives you thoughts of summer, right?

For fans of science fiction

Chocolate decor elements can be bought or prepared on your own

Sponge cake - "sponge cake" - a newfangled way of decorating cakes

Video: how to decorate a mousse cake

Mousse desserts sometimes look so that inexperienced housewives give up in advance: how can you cook such beauty yourself ?! You can, do not even hesitate! To do this, you do not need to finish cooking courses, nor to look for special ingredients in stores. Enough of your hot desire and a little zeal, and the mousse cake will certainly submit to you, so do not be afraid to experiment.