This Caramel Tiramisu Mousse Cake is made with layers of homemade ladyfingers soaked in espresso, a soft pillowy caramel mousse and finished with a shiny chocolate mirror glaze. A Christmas showstopper!
Whether you serve this Caramel Tiramisu Mousse Cake still a little frozen, semi-freddo style, or wait for it to turn into a soft, melt-in-the-mouth mousse, either way, it makes for a pretty impressive festive dessert. I’ve included a recipe for homemade ladyfinger biscuits purely because you can then make the layers round, but if you’d prefer taking a shortcut and using storebought, then go right ahead! I would then rather make it in a loaf tin than fight to make the finger biscuits fit. Use it, don’t use it.
The secret to getting the ultra smooth mirror glaze is to freeze the mousse cake. This not only makes it easier to unmould but means the glaze will cling to the frozen mousse and give a smooth finish. However, make sure your glaze is cool – 26 degrees celcius to be exact – otherwise it will melt the mousse and just slide off.
To make the finger biscuit layers, preheat the oven to 200˚C (180˚C fan-forced). Grease and line 3cm x 22cm cake tins (you can bake them one at a time if you only have one pan). Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form and gradually add the 75g castor sugar to form a meringue. Whip in the egg yolks, and fold in the cake flour and cornflour, taking care not to knock out the air. Add to a piping bag and pipe 3 concentric circles. Dust with a layer of icing sugar and bake, 8 – 10 minutes, until puffed and golden. Allow to cool before unmoulding.
Make the espresso syrup by dissolving the 30ml (2 tbsp) sugar in the hot espresso and allow to cool.
For the mascarpone mousse, beat the 3 large eggs with an electric mixer until pale and thick. The mixture should leave a trail. Soften the 3 gelatine sheets in water. Prepare a caramel by heating the white sugar in a frying pan until it turns golden and caramelised. Deglaze the caramel with the 50ml cold water and salt and boil until it reaches 121˚C (use a sugar thermometer). Add the gelatine to the hot caramel, then add it gradually into the egg yolks, while beating. Whip until the mixture is cool to the touch and thick, about 10 minutes. In the meantime, gradually add the fresh cream to the mascarpone, until thick and smooth. Fold this into the cooled egg mixture.
Assemble the cake by placing a finger biscuit layer into the bottom of a 22cm lined springform cake tin. Brush with the espresso syrup until soaked. Dust generously with cocoa powder. Pour over half of the mascarpone mousse. Dust with cocoa powder again. Repeat with the finger biscuit layer, syrup, cocoa and more mousse, finishing it off with the final biscuit layer and a thin layer of mousse. Freeze the cake until firm, about 4 hours.
For the mirror glaze, in a saucepan, combine the 125ml (½ cup) water, 250ml (1 cup) sugar, fresh cream and cocoa powder. Simmer, about 5 minutes, until mixture slightly thickens. Soften the 4 gelatine sheets in water and add to the hot glaze. Set over an ice bath and whisk until the glaze thickens and reaches about 26˚C, about 1 minute.
Unmould the frozen mousse cake, by using a hair dryer on a low hot setting to gently warm the pan and unmould easily. Set the cake on a small cake tin on top of a baking tray. Pour the glaze over, all at once, so it runs down the sides. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
To serve, decorate the cake with hazelnut chocolates, macarons and gold dust.
Notes
TIP To make gold paint to splatter the cake with, mix 15ml (1 tbsp) gold dust with 5ml (1 tsp) vodka or vanilla extract.
STORAGE The entire cake can be made 2 – 3 days before, freeze it and allow to defrost in the fridge before serving.
By TheKateTin.com
Adapted from Created for Food & Home Entertaining Magazine
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Adapted from Created for Food & Home Entertaining Magazine
This moerkoffie cake is really a chocolate marbled cake inspired by the plumes and clouds made when condensed milk is poured into strong, black moerkoffie (bitter coffee). It’s covered in a chocolate coffee French buttercream and finished with a condensed milk drip glaze.
It was while sitting at Kobus van der Merwe’s famous Wolfgat restaurant in Paternoster along the West Coast that I got an idea for this moerkoffie cake. The meal was faultless and an honest, innovative ode to the ingredients and culture of the area; the entire meal made from local seaweed and herbs foraged from the sand dunes along the coast. A true tribute to the area and the perfect end to the meal was a cup of strong, bitter moerkoffie sweetened with condensed milk. Inspiration struck!
If you don’t know what moerkoffie is, it’s a quintessentially South African style of making coffee that’s as unglamorous as it comes. Made in an enamel tea pot, traditionally over a fire, the ground coffee is boiled until the life has literally left it – all day, to be exact. A short rest so the coffee grinds sink to the bottom and the bitter, hair-on-your-chest brew is then poured into cups (enamel, preferably) before getting the finishing touch. A very generous swirl of condensed milk – straight out the tin, please!
It may not be as refined or well known as Vietnamese coffee, or the Spanish cafe bombon, but the combination of strong, bitter coffee and condensed milk is utterly delicious. How it hasn’t yet been turned into a dessert is beyond me!
The cake itself is a mocha vanilla swirl reminiscent of the clouds that form when you pour condensed milk into the coffee and it’s soaked in a moerkoffie syrup then topped with a mocha French buttercream. To finish, a sticky condensed milk drip that only uses 1/4 of a tin of condensed milk. I don’t need to tell you what to do with the rest, do I?
MOERKOFFIE CAKE
2018-11-07 14:47:25
Serves 8
This marbled cake is inspired by the plumes made when condensed milk is poured into strong, black moerkoffie (ground coffee made in a pot/kettle over an open fire)
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Prep Time
3 hr 20 min
Cook Time
40 min
Total Time
4 hr
Prep Time
3 hr 20 min
Cook Time
40 min
Total Time
4 hr
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Nutrition Facts
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Servings
8
Amount Per Serving
Calories0
Calories from Fat 0
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 0g
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Saturated Fat 0g
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Trans Fat 0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0g
Monounsaturated Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0mg
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Total Carbohydrates 0g
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Dietary Fiber 0g
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Sugars 0g
Protein 0g
Vitamin A
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* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your Daily Values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
175g The Kate Tin Baking White Chocolate, finely chopped
5ml (1 tsp) vanilla extract
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 170˚C. Grease and line 3 cake tins (each with a diameter of 20cm) with baking paper. Set aside until needed.
For the marbled cake, use a free-standing mixer or an electric hand-held beater to whisk the salted butter, 10ml (2 tsp) vanilla extract, castor sugar, eggs, cake flour, self-raising flour, bicarbonate of soda and full-cream milk together until pale and fluffy. Divide the mixture between two bowls. Fold the 50g cocoa powder and 5g (2 tsp) instant coffee powder into one half until thoroughly incorporated.
Using a small measuring cup as a scoop, drop a dollop of the vanilla batter into the centre of each prepared cake tin. Next, drop a cupful of the coffee batter into the centre of each blob of vanilla batter. Repeat with the remaining batter, alternating between the vanilla and coffee flavours as you go. When finished, tap the cake tins on a flat surface to spread the batter evenly.
Bake the cakes in the preheated oven until a skewer inserted into the centres of the cakes comes out clean, about 20 – 30 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool in the tins. Once cool enough to touch, remove the cakes from the tins and transfer to a wire cooling rack. Use a serrated bread knife to cut the top off each cake to create a flat surface.
For the moerkoffie buttercream icing, place the 300g white sugar and 150ml moerkoffie in a medium saucepan. Stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and bring the mixture to a boil until it reaches soft ball stage. Remove from heat and set aside.
Use a free-standing mixer or an electric hand-held beater to whisk the egg yolks until pale and fluffy. Gradually pour the hot sugar syrup down the inside of the bowl, while whisking continuously. Continue to whisk until the mixture thickens and becomes cool to the touch. Slowly add the unsalted butter (one cube at a time) until the mixture turns creamy. Whisk in the 7g (1 tbsp) sifted cocoa powder and fold in the brandy mixture. Set aside until needed.
To assemble, stack the cakes on top of one another on a cake stand, spreading a thick layer of the moerkoffie buttercream icing between each layer. Brush the cakes with the moerkoffie as you go. Cover the entire cake with a thin layer of icing to form a crumb coat. Place in the fridge until the icing has set. Remove from fridge and add a second coat of frosting. Return to the fridge until set.
While the cake is refrigerating, make the condensed milk drip. Place the powdered gelatine in a small, microwave-safe bowl (about the size of a teacup) and add enough cold water to just cover the gelatine. Set aside to soak for 1 minute. Once soaked, microwave in 10-second bursts until the gelatine has dissolved. Set aside until needed.
Place the water, 150g white sugar and condensed milk in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Once boiling, remove from heat and add the gelatine. Stir until well incorporated then add the chopped white chocolate and 5ml (1 tsp) vanilla extract.
Place the saucepan over an ice bath and whisk gently until the chocolate has melted and the mixture has thickened, about 5 minutes. Carefully pour the mixture over the edge of the cake, allowing it to slowly drip down the sides.
Have you ever tried to frost a cake upside-down? That’s what the upside-down cake frosting technique is all about. And it will change your life!
Want a perfectly smooth and flat cake with sharp edges? Then flip it upside down! Check out the video below to find out exactly how the upside-down cake frosting technique works. You won’t ice a cake any other way ever again!
If you’re looking for a recipe to try this technique on, try this one or how about this one. If you’d like a written step-by-step description of how to do the upside-down frosting technique, then click here.
These baked doughnuts have a crunchy biscuit layer on the bottom and are coated in a glaze made with cereal milk
#SPONSORED
Have you ever wondered why it’s socially acceptable to eat a doughnut for breakfast (Thank you, America) but cake gets you a raised eyebrow? Well, I wonder this all the time. Which is why I love the cake doughnut – it’s cake disguised as a doughnut, making it totally okay. It doesn’t end there because now we can also have cookies for breakfast – BAKERS® has made Good Morning Breakfast Biscuits! What a time to be alive.
The recipe for these cake doughnuts is probably the easiest one you will ever make. Add all the ingredients to one bowl. Mix. Bake. Done. But what they lack in difficulty they make up for in ingenuity because THEY HAVE COOKIES INSIDE! Yup, I crammed the new BAKERS® Good Morning Breakfast Biscuits inside the batter to give it a crunch – why has no one thought of this before?!
Dip them in a glaze made with cereal milk and you’ve got a doughnut that’s not just a pretty face; bite into the light sponge and then BAM there’s some serious crunch going on because the breakfast biscuits stay crisp even after baking. It’s milk and cookies meets cake.
So, to sum up, these are a breakfast food because:
They contain yoghurt.
They contain BAKERS® Good Morning Breakfast Biscuits
6 Good Morning Milk & Cereals Breakfast Biscuits, plus extra for garnish
DOUGHNUTS
60g yoghurt
60g (1/4 cup) vegetable oil
120g caster sugar
180g self-raising flour
1 large egg
few drops vanilla extract
GLAZE
60ml milk
60ml breakfast cereal of your choice
240g icing sugar, sifted
Blue and purple gel food colouring
Instructions
Preheat oven to 180C (160 for fan-forced). Grease a 12-hole doughnut pan and crumble the biscuits into the bottom of each doughnut hole. To make the doughnuts, place all the ingredients into one bowl and beat well for 3 minutes. Pour the mix into a piping bag and pipe into the greased doughnut tray and bake in the oven at 180C for 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool slightly before turning out onto a wire rack. To make the icing, combine the milk and breakfast cereal and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Strain the milk (discard the cereal) and stir it into the icing sugar to form a thick, spreadable consistency. Tint the glaze blue and purple and dip the doughnuts into the glaze. These doughnuts are best enjoyed on the day they're made.
*This Tiramisu Crunch Cake recipe is SPONSORED content
Lancewood has just launched a hunt for South Africa’s No.1 cake and guys, I don’t need to tell you that we need to win this one. Not me, but YOU! I want to see one of you win the all-expenses-paid trip to New York worth R150 000! I know you can do it!
So, what to bake that will WOW the judges?
First, it needs to be a cake (obvs) – but it can be a sweet or savoury cake! Think cheesecakes, sponge cakes, fridge cake – as long as it’s called a cake and looks like a cake, it counts!
Secondly, make something you LOVE. If you get excited about lemon meringue, then do a twist on that. I am crazy about tiramisu. This is evident in the many ways I’ve twisted it over the years. I’ve stuffed it into éclairs, frozen it, and if I was entering, I thought I’d make it into a cake! This is my Tiramisu Crunch Cake which is a naked cake (inspired by Christina Tosi’s famous Momofuku Milk Bar cake) to prove that even if you’re not great at cake decorating, you can still make a beautiful, drop-dead-delicious cake that’s bang on-trend. It has layers of espresso soaked sponge, a lusciously velvety mascarpone frosting made with Lancewood’s decadent mascarpone. The real surprise factor lies in the crunchy cocoa rubble that is sprinkled in between the layers to add crunch. It’s seriously goooooood!
Thirdly, you need to use a Lancewood product (they have so many to choose from here) and submit a picture of your cake with the product you use in the picture – like this:
The judges (Zola Nene, J’Something and Lorna Maseko) might not be judging you on your photography skills, but I do think a good photo will help set you apart from the crowd (and help you get more public votes). So, here are some tips to take a great photo:
Set your cake next to a window or door where there’s natural daylight coming from one direction (avoid shooting at night/under fluorescent lights)
Put it on a pretty plate or cake stand (or a stack of plates) and shoot straight from the side so you can show off those layers!
Sometimes a cake looks better sliced so you can see what’s inside! Tip to getting the perfect slice? Chill your cake, then place your sharpest knife in a jug filled with just-boiled water to heat up, then wipe the knife with paper towel and slice, cleaning and dipping the knife in between each cut.
If it needs a wow factor, add a sparkler or drizzle it with melted chocolate (it always works!).
Use Instagram’s new ‘focus’ feature to blur out the background and make your cake the hero of the shot.
Edit the photo on your phone by increasing the contrast which makes the colours pop.
230g Lancewood Medium-Fat Cream cheese, room temperature
230g Lancewood Mascarpone, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
To make the sponge, preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius (170 if you’re using a fan-forced oven). Grease and line 4 x 20cm cake tins with baking paper. If like me, you don’t have 4 (who does), you’ll have to reline and bake the cakes in batches (which is perfectly okay).
Using an electric handheld or stand mixer (with the paddle attachment), place the butter, sugar, flour and baking powder in the bowl and mix on low speed until it resembles a sandy breadcrumb texture. Whisk together the milk, vanilla and eggs then, with the speed still on low, gradually pour the liquid into the dry ingredients. Beat the batter until smooth and light – about 2 minutes. Divide the cake batter in between your lined tins (if you’re OCD like me you can weight it so they’re all even – I used 400g in each of my tins). Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden, springy to the touch and a wooden skewer comes out clean. Allow the layers to cool completely before levelling them off by cutting off the tops with a bread knife. Allow to completely cool before use.
For the cocoa crumble; combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl and spread out evenly on a lined baking tray. Bake in a 180 degrees Celsius (160 if you’re using a fan-forced) oven for 15-20 minutes. Allow to cool.
To make the espresso syrup; brew the espresso and stir in the sugar until completely dissolved.
For the mascarpone frosting; Using an electric handheld or stand mixer (with the paddle attachment) mix the butter and icing sugar together until it reaches a sandy texture – about 9 minutes. Then add the cream cheese (room temperature) and vanilla extract and mix carefully until smooth. Fold in the mascarpone, don’t overmix. Place the frosting into a piping bag with a plain nozzle.
To assemble the Tiramisu Crunch Cake: make a collar that’s 65cm long and 21cm wide out of acetate (2 x A4 acetate sheets taped together) or double folded baking paper and insert it into the same springform cake tin you used to bake the cakes. Place the first layer of cake in the bottom of the cake tin. Brush generously with espresso syrup (don’t be afraid to really soak it as this is what will make it taste like tiramisu!), pipe a layer of frosting to cover the base and sprinkle with the cocoa crumble. Repeat this process until all the cake layers have been used. Make sure that each layer is pressed down properly. Finish the cake with a layer of frosting and the cocoa crumble. Place in the freezer for a minimum of 6 hours or until the frosting is firm. To unmold, remove the Tiramisu Crunch Cake from the cake tin, peel of the acetate and allow it to come back to room temperature before serving with a dark chocolate sauce.
This Matcha Mille Crepe Cake is based on a classic French pastry called Gâteau Mille Crêpes. ‘Mille’ literally means ‘thousands’ in French and even though the ‘cake’ is made of 10 to 20 layers, I promise you it feels like thousands when you’re making the crepes! It’s all worth it, though when you cut a slice to reveal all that instagrammable matcha prettiness!
What makes matcha tea so special (and expensive) is the fact that it’s made from the best green tea leaves. The leaves are usually grown in the shade to intensify the dark green colour (I won’t bore you with the chlorophyll sciencey stuff) and it also gives a serious boost to the theanine and caffeine.Only the finest tea buds are hand-picked, leaves de-veined and de-stemmed, and then stone-ground make the delicate, fine powder. It can take up to one hour to grind 30 grams of matcha! See, I told you making all those pancakes for this is worth it!
Also, note that matcha comes in different grades; if you’re cooking with it, don’t waste your cash by buying ‘ceremonial grade’. This is the highest quality and the most expensive (it’s supposed to be good enough to be used in temples) but will be wasted if heated to a high heat. Also don’t buy it in large quantities – use it quickly after opening as it oxidizes and loses its flavour quite quickly!
To make the pancakes, place the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Whisk the eggs and milk and whisk into the dry ingredients with the melted butter and the matcha powder. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours. Heat a non-stick pan and ladle a small amount of batter into the pan. Swirl the pan around to evenly coat it with batter. When the edges begin to lift, flip over and cook the other side until brown. Repeat with the remaining batter. This will go faster if you work with two frying pans at a time.
To make the custard filling, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, cornflour and 1/4 cup of the milk together in a large bowl to make a paste. Heat the remaining milk and bring to the boil. Gradually add the hot mixture to the paste while whisking. Return to the heat and whisk continuously over a medium heat until the custard thickens. Cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the vanilla extract. Soften the gelatin sheet in cold water, squeeze out any excess water and mix into the hot custard. Spread the custard out on a baking tray, cover the surface with clingfilm and allow to cool completely. Once cooled, whisk the custard until smooth, then fold in the whipped cream.
To assemble the Matcha Mille Crepe Cake, put a crêpe on a plate or cake stand then spread with a thin layer of custard cream. Lightly dust with icing sugar and matcha powder. Repeat and stack until the cream and crêpes are used up, finishing with a crepe layer. Chill for 2 hours, then dust with matcha and cut into wedges to serve.
