For Christmas: Chocolate Mousse Cherry Cake

Warning, this is again a recipe that requires time. At least the chocolate mousse part takes its time. However, the good news is that you can prepare this beauty well in advance as it freezes up nicely. So how about a last minute change in the Christmas menu? Can I interest you in a rich and creamy cake, which combines the best parts of chocolate with cherry? I invented it for my birthday originally. And for that reason you get your heavy load of chocolate and also fruit. Because that’s me. Rich chocolate already in the pie pastry, a thick cherry filling and rich chocolate mousse to top it off with, so delicious and perfect for any special occasion!

By the way, I won the main prize with this recipe. Marc from the blog www.baketotheroots.de baked my recipe and took some wonderful pictures of the result. See more details here.

He allowed me to use one of his pictures here. For more details, have a look at it here. He paired up with the brand Rittersport and required people to submit any recipe containing chocolate. The main prize was to go to a chocolate festival in the south of Germany in the little town called Tübingen. The below chocolate mousse cherry cake won first prize! And I got to see Tübingen.

And of course, enjoy the chocolate festival. Yes, that woman is painting with chocolate and how can you not smile if you get more than a meter of chocolate and those “salamis” are actucally made of chocolate.

But enough about the festival and prize I won, let’s focus on the cake that made it to the final. So as stated, especially the mousse part will get many bowls dirty and takes some time, but you can make this cake in advance and freeze it before serving. I wish you a very wonderful Christmas celebration and hope you enjoy this cake!

Print Recipe

Chocolate Mousse Cherry Cake

Serves: One 26 cm ∅ springform

Cooking Time: 1hr preparation + 20min of baking

Ingredients

• Pastry Dough
• 250 grams of all-purpose flour
• 80 grams of regular sugar
• 25 grams of unsweetened cocoa
• 150 grams of cold butter
• 1 egg
• 
  
• Cherry Filling
• 2 glasses of cherries (about 600 grams)
• 300 milliliters cherry juice
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons regular sugar
• Juice of half a lemon
•  
  
• Mousse Topping
• 150 grams of semi-sweet chocolate
• 75 milliliters of milk
• 1 egg white
• 15 grams + 65 grams of regular sugar 
• 1 egg yolk
• 200 milliliters/grams of heavy cream 
• 3 envelopes of gelatine
• Icing sugar

Instructions

1

For the pastry dough mix flour, sugar, cocoa and butter quickly with your hands into crumbs. Then add the egg, knead a little more and form into a ball. In case the dough is crumbly, add a little bit of milk. Cover in plastic wrap for half an hour in the fridge.

2

Grease a springform of 26cm in diameter and preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

3

Roll out ¾ dough on floured surface and place in the springform, covering the rim completely, prick with fork. Bake for 18-20min.

4

Meanwhile roll out last quarter and cut into desired shapes (such as stars, hearts, etc.) and bake the last eight minutes with the springform.

5

For the cherry filling drain the cherries while keeping the juice.

6

Stir cornstarch, sugar and a little bit of the cherry juice in a mug. Let the remainder of the cherry juice and lemon juice come to boil, then add the prepared cornstarch and let boil a second time. Add the cherries once it thickens and let cool off.

7

For the mousse chop chocolate into small pieces and melt on low with the milk. Set aside.

8

Beat egg whites with 15 grams of sugar into meringue. Chill in fridge. Also beat the heavy cream until stiff, also chill in fridge.

9

Beat egg yolk with 65 grams of sugar in a bain-marie until sugar dissolves. Add the chocolate mix and stir. Take off bain-marie and let cool for a little bit.

10

Dissolve gelatine and stir into warm mixture. Let cool off more before folding in meringue and whipping cream, we don’t want them to melt.

11

Put cherry filling on the bottom of the prepared pastry, then the mousse. Chill for at least four hours or over night or freeze.

12

Shortly before serving, decorate with icing sugar and cut out cookies. Enjoy chilled.