Lychee Mousse Cake

The lychee mousse is amazingly delicious, so this cake will taste great even when all the other components of are messed up :-)

Source

Adopted from Reader’s Digest “Baking with Love”, Raspberry Torte recipe

Taste 5 (out of 5)

Difficulty 3 (out of 5)

Ingredients

For the sponge

- 1/4 cup / 55 g caster sugar (215 cal)

- 1 tsp vanilla essence (10 cal)

- 2 eggs (140 cal)

- 1/2 cup / 60 g brown sugar (275 cal)

- 1/4 tsp baking powder

For the pastry

- 1 cup / 125 g all purpose flour (455 cal)

- 1/2 tsp baking powder

- 1/4 cup / 60 g butter (405 cal)

- 2 tbsp brown sugar (105 cal)

- 1 egg yolk (55 cal)

For chocolate layer and filling

- 1/3 cup / 50 g dark chocolate (245 cal)

- 2 1/2 cups / 300 g lychees (200 cal)

- 1 1/3 cups / 350 g non fat plain yogurt (180 cal)

- 1/5 cup / 50 ml lemon juice (15 cal)

- 1 tbsp / 14 g powdered clear gelatin

- 1 1/2 cups / 375 ml whipping cream (1100 cal)

For the glaze and decoration

- 10 strawberries (220 cal)

- 2 tbsp raspberry jam (70 cal)

- 1/2 cup lychee syrup (100 cal)

- 1/2 tsp powdered gelatin

Total 3790, 12 servings, 315 cal / serving

Instructions

1. Use 2 9-inch spring-form pans, or you can also get along with 1 if that’s all you got. Grease the base and side of one tin. Preheat the oven to 350F. 

2. For the sponge: beat the sugar, vanilla essence, eggs and 1 tsp cold water until fluffy. Mix flour and baking powder and sift over the egg mixture. Fold in with a whisk. Spread the sponge mixture in the greased tin. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove the tin from the oven, loosen the sides with a knife and open the spring-form. Turn sponge layer onto parchment paper or a silicon mat. Do not remove the base of the tin. Let the sponge cool.

3. For the pastry: combine all the ingredients in a bowl, knead into a smooth dough. Shape into a ball, press flat, wrap in cling wrap and chill for 30 minutes. Grease base of the second spring-form tin. Roll out pastry to line base of tin and prick several times with a form. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven, cool on a wire rack. Remove from the tin.

4. For the chocolate layer: melt chocolate in a bowl of simmering water (or in a microwave) and spread over cooled pastry base. Remove base of the tin and baking paper of the pastry base with top facing downwards. Place a cake ring around the pastry and the sponge. 

5. For the filling: puree the lychees, combine with sugar, yogurt and lemon juice. Sprinkle the gelatin over 1/4 cup of warm water in a small saucepan. Stir over a low heat until dissolved. Stir into the lychee  mixture. Beat the cream until stiff. As soon as the lychee mixture begins to set, stir in the cream and pour onto the sponge base, smooth the top. Allow to set in the fridge for 1 1/2 hours.

6. Cut the strawberries into 3-4 slices lengthwise. Soak them in the lychee syrup, especially if they are not very sweet. 

7. For the glaze: combine lychee syrup with jam, place in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and pour the mixture through a fine sieve (if the jam has seeds). Mix the gelatin with 2 tbsp of warm water, and then add to the hot glaze. 

8. Arrange the strawberries on top of the lychee mousse. When the glaze has cooled a little, pour it over the strawberries. Chill in the refrigerator for 1 more hour. 

9. When the cake is firm, loosen the cake with a sharp knife and gently remove the ring.

Afterthoughts

- Most of the steps in this recipe did not turn out as I expected, even though I followed them quite precisely, but the lychee mousse was so good, that I really think this cake tastes 5 out of 5. 

- What went wrong? First, the pastry layer is very flaky. It seems to be suited for a crumble - it is absolutely impossible to roll. I would think that you need to add cold water to it, to make it a little more flexible, but the recipe did not ask for it, so I did not have water, and could not roll out the pastry. I simply pressed it to the tin with the fingers. And then when I tried to remove it it cracked, in so many places, that it was absolutely impossible to glue them together. So I had to discard the pastry layer :-).

- Then the sponge was too soft to serve as a base. It also got stuck to the tin and was torn in the middle, but I just put the torn part back in and the moisture from the mousse glued it up. But overall, the sponge was not spongy enough to absorb all the mousse, but not hard enough to be a base. I would use more flour next time.

- The lychee layer tasted wonderful! Texture-wise, I would add a little more gelatin, and wait until it’s semi solid to pour it out (I poured it when it was still too liquid). In the original recipe, it was supposed to be a raspberry mousse, which probably would have tasted great too.

- The glaze was just as you would expect this type of glaze to be.

- This is a cook book of trial and error, this recipe certainly fits both the trial and the error categories :-).