Help me design a choc-caramel cake!

[stuartlikesstrudel]

Hi everyone,

A friend has requested a Rolo cake for her birthday, basically she just wants chocolate and some gooey caramel.

I've decided to make it a mousse cake, and construct it upside down like some of those fancy layered cakes, so you turn it out and get a nice even top and sides (although I guess it could be done in a springform as well?).

Here's a recipe that I have looked at for the general concept (not flavours though).

What I've thought of is the following (top to bottom) :

Choc mousse

caramel layer

(more choc mousse)

choc sponge

choc ganache (thin, mainly for an intense choc bit and nice texture contrast)

choc sponge.

So I like the idea of this, but I'm wondering if there's something crispy or texturally different that I can add in... something like a disc of chocolate with feuilletine or similar. But i'm not really sure what that might be.

I'd also like any thoughts on the overall thing, since it's something I've come up with (structurally based on the recipe mentioned earlier).

Does anyone know if I'd be able to do the final construction 24 hours before serving and keep it in the freezer or fridge? I figure that since it instructs you to chill the mousse in the freezer, it might be ok to keep it in there as long as I thaw it before serving?

Cheers,

Stuart.

[ChrisZ]

Just sharing a few random thoughts after reading your post.

- It's going to be a very sweet cake!

- If you're going to include a chocolate ganache and a chocolate mousse, I'd make them clearly different. But if they're both just plain chocolate my guess is one will dominate the other, so you're better off choosing one and using it 3 times and saving yourself the time and dishes. This is really just an opinion based on my failures, so ignore me if you know what you're doing ;-) But looking at your concept you have chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, chocolate ganache and potentially discs of pure chocolate too. I don't think I could make that cake and have all the chocolate layers clearly distinctive (but I'm sure a better chef could).

- I have tried a few cakes with layers of caramel mousse in them and I find that a caramel flavour is easily diluted as a mousse. I have not had any luck in producing an intense caramel mousse that can be clearly identified against a rich chocolate cake. So rather than use a true caramel (starting with sugar) I use a dulce de leche instead - this means either boiling cans of condensed milk for 3 hours or simply buying a can of caramel from the supermarket (Nestle sell pre-boiled cans of condensed milk, and in our supermarket they're sold next to each other). If your chocolate cake is a light, mild sponge then you might have more luck than I've had.

- You can get great texture and additional caramel flavour by making honeycomb - AKA sponge toffee or hokey pokey. Regardless of what you call it, it's essentially a sugar caramel with a bit of bicarb in it. Break it up into crumbs and sprinkle it on the top, or make a layer out of it. It will give you a sticky, crunchy texture as well as a nice rich caramel flavour. But honeycomb is something that can weep if you put it in the fridge, so bear that in mind.

HTH and would love to see a photo of the finished cake!

-Chris

[Panaderia Canadiense]

For flavour differentiation, I'd be very very tempted to make the mousse a B-52 or similar (flavour it with Kahlua and Gran Marnier), to offset the pure chocolateyness of the ganache (unless you're into flavoured truffles - then I'd be very tempted to introduce burnt sugar as a note there).

Texturally, you can add in chocolate rice crisps to one of the mousse layers (they hold their crunch rather well, at least the ones I can buy do), or think about a hard caramel concept - take a bar of something like MacIntosh's Toffee, freeze it, whack it with a hammer, and use the resulting caramel shards, which are somewhere between crunchy and chewy. Or try crunched up butter toffee or brittle (another excellent caramel flavour, with a crunchier texture). HOWEVER, Rolos are not at all crunchy (unless they're very very stale) - and if you're staying true to your influence, neither should your cake be.

I'll second Chris' recommendation for Dulce de Leche or Manjar - it's a more manageable gooey caramel for cakes, and it can be spread on your chocolate sponge layers rather easily. It also freezes very well. I buy it by the 1 kg jug - that's how much I use it (it's the "icing" on my caramel-apple cakes.)

You'll be fine in the freezer until serving - in my experience, if you go direct from freezer to table, it ends up sort of like an ice-cream cake bombe, which is a neat effect.

[stuartlikesstrudel]

Thanks for your thoughts, Chris and Liz. You both gave some helpful tips and ideas which I have incorporated... the cake is finished and will be eaten tonight. From tasting the components, it's not exactly what I was hoping for but it will be enjoyed, I'm sure, and I got to play with some ideas that I have been wanting to try out so it was a good learning experience anyway

Chris, I loved the idea of the honeycomb... that would have been terrific as the crunchy "insert" but i couldn't think of how to stop it weeping in contact with the mousse, so i left it for this time. Similarly, Liz, your idea for hard caramel was also good, in the end I agreed with your point that perhaps the cake shouldn't be crispy.

I'll give a run down after we've eaten it, but thanks

[ammyrodrics]

wow! it seems so yummy and delicious..Love the cakes especially the chocolate one's..Thanks a lot for sharing!

Edited December 15, 2011 by ammyrodrics (log)

[stuartlikesstrudel]

Ok well we ate the cake last night and it was tasty, but there are definitely some things I have learnt from it.

The cake unmoulded really well from the freezer (thanks Liz!) and held its shape. The layers all kind of blended together mainly because of the similar color and flavour. I planned for the mousse to be lighter and less chocolatey, but I didn't want to use milk chocolate or it would be too sweet with the caramel. So i used a dark chocolate mousse recipe but didn't check the quantities, it ended up being quite chocolatey.

Instead of a ganache layer I did a chocolate gel, which was intensely chocolatey, but again it got a bit lost amongst it all. There were 5 components all up but you could only really see 3, so Chris you were right in the end that I could have gotten away with less layers (and dishes!). But I'm glad I did it this way because I learnt some stuff and got to try out some techniques and entremet construction that I've never had the chance to do before.

And next time, with a more open concept, I will have great fun playing around with more different flavours and textures!

Here's a photo of the finished cake, I don't have a cross section unfortunately, but just imagine brown and you've pretty much got it