Pieces of Chocolate Goodness

I'm interrupting this family blog to talk about food. I'm jumping into the Around My French Table Cookalong you'll find at French Fridays with Dorie. This week featured one of my favorite foods in the world... chocolate. It's called michael rostang's double chcocolate mousse cake.

It was actually quite easy to make with not a lot of ingredients. Melting the chocolate and whipping the meringue went well. I loved pulling out my Kitchen-Aid again, after a long hiatus. The recipe calls for twice baking the cake. First, you make a bottom shell using just the ring of a springform pan. This is where not following directions got me into trouble. You were supposed to put either a silicone mat or parchment paper underneath the ring and on top of a sheet pan. Well, I couldn't find either one, so I just put it on top of my non-stick and slightly warped cookie sheet.

As you can see, some of the cake oozed out the side. I saw that others had this problem too. The cake didn't puff up along the sides as described in the book. It remained a flat shell. I made the "warm" cake recipe. I chilled the shell for just an hour in the fridge instead of overnight. Then , I baked the remainder of the batter as directed on top of the shell. It came out looking and smelling lovely.



The big problem came when it was time to serve to some of my friends.

The cake was positively glued to the cookie sheet. There was no way of prying it off without turning it into cake "shards". So, that's what we ate along with some vanilla ice cream.


My buddies, the knitting chicas, were fine with that. All that chocolately goodness was still there, just didn't look so pretty. Lesson learned. Directions are there for a reason. At least the failure was still pretty satisfying. Next week...chicken b'stilla.