chocolate and strawberry mousse chiffon cake

This is just like the previous chiffon I've blogged about. It's a light and airy cake (if it rises well) and I think it's an absolutely delight. Though I admit I find the chocolate chiffon harder to make than the lemon one. Maybe I'll try a different recipe for this next time, but for now, this works well! So, this is a chocoalte chiffon, with a thick supportive layer of strawberry mousse in the middle, lots of ganache on top and chocolate bits around the side. My piping is rubbish as per always, but it says  "Congratulations Dr Gammons" for a friend who will be passing her PhD viva today (SO EXCITED for her actually). 

Ingredients (Chocolate chiffon)

• 125g self raising flour
• 150g + 50g caster sugar (in separate bowls)
• 4 egg yolks
• 5 egg whites
• 80ml vegetable oil
• 50ml cold water
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 25g coco powder

1. Grease 23cm (9 inch) baking tin with butter and pre-heat oven to 170 degrees C
2. Sift and mix flour, coco powder, baking powder and 150g caster sugar together
3. Add water, oil and egg yolks to the mix and whisk until smooth
4. Now beat the egg whites until foamy, then add 1 tbsp of the remaining 50g caster sugar at a time to it until it forms soft peaks and glossy
5. Add 1/3 of meringue to cake mix and fold it in, then add the rest of the egg whites to it and gently fold in the rest 
6. Pour cake mix into baking tin (put it as close to tin as possible to prevent the batter dropping from a great height, this should help to keep some of the air in)
7. (I melted the dark chocolate and piped it to form the side structure onto a baking parchment at this stage and put it into the fridge to set)
8. Bake for 60-70 minutes, it should almost double in height and when tested with a clean skewer, it should come out clean as per usual 
9. Tip the tin upside down with cake inside and let it cool upside down on a wire rack for 40 minutes
10. When it has cooled, cut it horizontally into 2 equal sponges

Ingredients (strawberry mousse)

• 250g strawberries
• 150ml double cream
• 30g caster sugar
• 30g corn flour

1. Puree the strawberries 
2. Add sugar to strawberry puree and put it over medium heat until it boils
3. Add 1 tbsp of strawberry puree at a time to corn flour and mix the flour in
4. Put the mixture back into saucepan and stir continuously until it thickens
5. Leave it aside to cool down
6. Whisk double cream until it thickens and sort of stiff 
7. Fold in strawberry into the thickened cream

Assembling the cake

1. Fill bottom sponge with half of strawberry mousse
2. Half strawberries and lay them on top of the mousse and cover them remaining mousse
3. Put the other half of cake on 
4. Make the ganache (in MANY of my previous posts, you will need about 250g dark chocolate for this one) and let it cool down slightly for 10 minutes and pour about 1/3 over the top to make a smooth finish. Let the remaining ganache to cool further for 30-40 minutes or until it is more of a paste in structure and COMPLETELY COOL! Spread that across the side of the cake to hide the filling and also act as the sticking agent for the chocolate structures on the side
5. Use a sharp knife to cut up the chocolate structure and stick them onto the chocolate ganache on the side of the cake, that is why it's important your ganache is cool, or it will melt the chocolate structures. Also, it's important to know, the ganache is FAR less sticky when it has completely cooled after a few hours, so if you stick the chocolate on now, they will stay on. But if you do them later, they won't stick
6. Now the cake can go into the fridge until next morning if you want
7. Melt some milk chocolate and pipe the message onto the cake and decorate with strawberries! YAY, FINISHED!