Recipe | Sweet
Delices, delices que des delices! (Bernard Laevens)

A little sweet dream for you … Once upon a time, there were in a kitchen a lot of ingredients for a huge delicious cake. Here they are." We made it once; which is enough; it is hard work as there are several components to make before you can assemble it.

Chocolate mousse

180g chocolate

Melt chocolate in a bain-marie containing hot water but not boiling water.

1 ½ cups cream

In a big bowl, whip the cream.

Add ¼ of the whipped cream to the melted chocolate. Do this carefully.

1 tablespoon orange liqueur

Then add slowly the chocolate preparation and the orange liqueur to the rest of the whipped cream.

Put a lid on and keep in the fridge for 1 ½-2 hours so the mousse is firm.

Are you dribbling already?

Gateau au chocolate

1 ¾ cups flour

¾ cups cocoa

1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking yeast

½ teaspoon salt

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking yeast, baking soda and salt. Keep for later use.

1 cups sugar

½ cup vegetable grease (at room temperature)

¼ cup butter (at room temperature)

3 eggs

In another big bowl, mix sugar, vegetable grease and butter until you obtain a creamy preparation.

During the whipping, add one by one the eggs.

1 teaspoon vanilla

Add the vanilla and mix well.

1 ¼ cups hot milk

Add the dry ingredients and the milk.

Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients, mix, then ½ of the milk, mix, then 1/3 of the dry ingredients, mix, the rets of the milk, mix, and the rest of the dry ingredients, and mix again.

In two Chef mated dish pour the preparation.

Cook at 180 degrees celsius for 30-40 mintues or until a clean knife stick in the middle comes out clean.

Put cakes on a plate and let cool down for 10 minutes, then remove them from the dish and let them cool down completely on paper towels.

Keep one cake for another use in the fridge or freeze it. You can keep it up to four months.

White chocolate coating

On a cooking plate, put 15in x 10 in (38cm x 25 cm) of waxed paper.

250 g ground white chocolate

(use high quality white chocolate. The one made with cocoa butter and not with vegetable grease.)

In a bain-marie containing hot water (keep the bain-marie out of the fire), melt the ground white chocolate (mix often) until it is creamy. Don’t microwave it (naughty boy) or melt it on a warm plate.

Spread the chocolate on the waxed paper so you have a rectangle of 15in x 5 in (38cm x 12 cm).

Keep in the fridge for 10 minutes or until the chocolate is becoming firm and can be cut without breaking.

Cut the rectangle in two to have two pieces of 15in x 2 ½ in.

Chocolate coated strawberries

4 cups strawberries (with stem)

Wash the strawberries and dry then with paper towel.

Let them air dry completely.

120g chocolate (same as usual)

In a bain-marie (with hot water), melt the dark chcolate.

Remove from the hot plate.

Hold strawberries by the stem, and dip them in the melted chocolate.

Remove the excess of chocolate and put strawberrie son a waed paper.

Keep in the fridge for 20 minutes.

60 g melted white chocolate

Spray the strawberries with melted white chocolate, keep in the fridge for 10 minutes.

You can prepare the strawberries in advance and keep them in the fridge until needed.

Assembling the cake

Gateau au chocolat:

Make gateau

Cut the cake in two (horizontally).

Chocolate mousse

Make mousse

Spread ¾ of the mousse on the first half of the cake cover with the other half, and spread the rest of the mousse on the top and around the cake. Keep in the fridge for an hour.

White chocolate coating

Make white chocolate coating

By pressing, fold the band around the cake (waxed paper not facing the cake).

Keep the cake in the fridge until the chocolate is firm.

Remove the waxed paper.

Repeat the same step with the other band.

The two bands must overlap. Seal the two bands together with melted white chocolate.

If the chocolate is too firm before starting this operation, put it in a warm place for a while.

30g melted white chocolate

60g melted chocolate (not sweet same as for the mousse)

With a little cone full of dark chocolate decorate the white chocolate bands or use a fork and dip in the dark chcolate.

Chocolate coated strawberries

Make strawberries

Put the strawberries on the cake.

Now, YOU CAN EAT LIKE A PIG, BECAUSE YOU DESERVE IT AFTER ALL THIS WORK. Of course, it is an healthy dessert with few calories.

Bernard