X’mas Special: Triple Chocolate Mousse (“Moose”) Cake

Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la la la la la! In lieu of the festive season, I have prepared a special recipe perfect for any Christmas celebration – Triple Chocolate “Moose” Cake! 🦌

Christmas has always been my absolute favourite holiday. I love hosting dinner parties and putting in lots of effort into food preparation. Last Christmas I had a lot of fun making this dessert. It put a smile on my face while decorating them and it made my friends laugh at the silly pun too (please tell me you get it?). Though to be honest, I don’t actually understand the connection between Christmas and moose… 🤔

The cake comprises of 3 layers: brownie, mousse and ganache. There is plenty of scope for you to be creative with this recipe and vary it as you please, but it makes sense to keep the Mousse layer in order for the joke to make sense!

I couldn’t find normal pretzel snacks last year as I was (regrettably) doing very last minute Christmas shopping and all the good stuff was out of stock by then. As an alternative, I used little star pretzel snacks for the Moose’s antlers, which turned out to be super festive! For the eyes, I basically cut some mini marshmallows in half and stuck chocolate chips on them. Lastly, I used M&M’s chocolate for the bright red nose – kinda looks like a reindeer now, doesn’t it?

You can either buy the White Peppermint M&M’s which comes in white and red only, or you can just buy the normal M&M’s peanut and pick out all the red ones! I personally prefer the latter as the M&M’s peanut is rounder and bigger in size, perfect for a chubby nose. Also, the White Peppermint M&M’s may not be as easily accessible as they were special holiday edition packs.

Last year I took a trip to M&M’s World Store in London to buy the red M&M’s. The place is amazing as it has these segregated cylindrical tubes of M&M’s for each and every colour, just like a mini factory! Although it does get quite crowded, I always have a lot of fun picking out the colours.

If you do try this recipe, I would love to see some pictures of your creations. 🙂 🦌
Happy baking!

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5 from 1 vote

Triple Chocolate Mousse (“Moose”) Cake

The ideal Christmas dessert made out of 3 delicious chocolate layers: brownie, mousse & ganache. Together they are fun, punny & yummy! Not only are they are easy to make, they make for a great decorating activity with the kids too. Why only decorate your table when you can decorate your desserts too?!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American, International

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Chill Time 3 hours hours

Servings 10 people

Calories 608kcal

Author SforB

Ingredients

Brownie layer:

• 110 g Unsalted butter , soften
• 150 g Caster sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 2 tsp Vanilla extract
• 90 g All purpose flour , unsifted
• 80 g Cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 2 tsp Milk

Mousse layer:

• 1 tsp Gelatine powder
• 20 ml Water , cold
• 150 g Milk chocolate
• 120 g Whipping cream (for melting)
• 160 g Whipping cream , cold

Ganache layer:

• 180 ml Whipping cream
• 1 tbsp Unsalted butter
• 250g g Dark chocolate , cut into chunks

Decorations:

• Pretzel snacks , salted
• 12 Mini marshmallows
• 24 Milk chocolate chips
• 12 Red M&M’s

Instructions

Brownie layer:

• Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celcius fan-assisted. Line and grease a 9-inch square baking pan.
• Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring continuously to avoid burning. Add in the sugar and stir until well combined. Remove the saucepan from heat and leave to cool slightly.
• Whisk the eggs, one at a time, into the slightly cooled butter-sugar mixture. Add the vanilla extract and whisk until smooth.
• Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl with a fork, i.e. flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients in without sifting, fold the mixture with a spatula until well incorporated. *
• Pour the brownie batter into the prepared pan and bake for 20-22 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool completely.

Mousse layer:

• Prepare the gelatine. In a small bowl, sprinkle gelatine powder over cold water and set aside for at least 3 minutes.
• Melt the chocolate and whipping cream using the double boiler method. ** Once the chocolate is fully melted, dissolve the gelatine into the mixture. Remove from heat and set aside to cool completely.
• Using an electric mixer, whip the cold whipping cream until stiff peaks. ***
• Add the cooled melted chocolate mixture and continue whisking just until well combined.
• Pour the chocolate mousse over the brownie layer. Refrigerate the cake for about 2 hours.

Ganache layer:

• Heat the cream and butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat just before it begins to boil. 
• Pour the hot cream mixture over the chocolate chunks. Leave for 1-2 minutes before stirring to melt the chocolate. Leave aside to cool until room temperature.
• Spread the ganache over the top of the chilled mousse layer. Continue to refrigerate the cake for another hour.
  
• Run a knife around the outer edges of the cake. Cut the cake into 12 equal rectangles, i.e. 3 rows and 4 columns. Transfer the rectangular slices for decorations – have fun!
  

Notes

* You want to keep the slightly heavy and dense texture of the brownie; sifting the dry ingredients will create a lighter and airier product.

** Place a heat proof bowl over a saucepan with simmering water over medium-low heat.

*** Be careful not to over-whip the whipping cream. You will start to see wave lines when it is soft peaks, but the peaks will still slide off the whisk while lifted. Stiff peaks will hold firm on the whisk while lifted.

As mentioned in the blog post, the mini marshmallows are cut in half as they can be quite thick. The halved parts are slightly stickier, which can be placed facing upwards to ensure the chocolate chips stick to them.

Volume to metrics Conversions can be found here.

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