Chocoholic: Chocolate Mousse Cake

Chocolate mousse cake and I have a special kind of thing. I fell in love with this cake at a restaurant during one of my waitressing jobs—it was long before I knew I even wanted to go to culinary school to be a pasty chef. An outrageously sinful chocolate mousse cake was on the menu: layers of moist chocolate cake and creamy chocolate mousse, all piled high with chocolate shavings. Even though it came delivered in a box, frozen and already sliced, I set my sights on a slice of it every night (it didn't help that it was my job to present our dessert tray). However, I wouldn't sit down at a table at the end of my shift, relax, and eat it properly. No, that's what an advanced human would do. I'd shove it in a take out bag, then use one hand to cram it into my face while the other hand drove my car home. My steering wheel was perpetually smeared with chocolate.

Swathed in a shiny chocolate ganache with a pile of delicate chocolate curls on top, this cake is a total showstopper. And what's lying within does not dissapoint. Two layers of chocolate cake sandwich a deep, thick layer of insanely decadent egg-enriched chocolate mousse. But it's all copacetic: the eggs in this mousse are cooked. How? By heating them up in a cooked vanilla sauce-like base.

Though the chocolate curls may look intimidating, they're really not hard at all (and dare I day, fun?). The best part is that you don't even have to temper the chocolate. Even if you wind up with shards of chocolate instead of tight rolls, it'll look amazing with the snowy dusting of sugar over the top. Everyone will be dying to know where you bought it.

About the Author: Yvonne Ruperti is a food writer, recipe developer, former bakery owner, and author of The Complete Idiot's Guide To Easy Artisan Bread. You can also watch her culinary stylings on the America's Test Kitchen television show. She presently lives in Singapore as a freelance writer for Time Out Singapore. Check out her blog: shophousecook.com . Follow Yvonne on Twitter.