Happy Father’s Day 2011 ~ Sri Melaka Mousse Cake 马六甲椰糖慕斯蛋糕

I have bookmarked this cake and decided to make it for Father’s Day ever since I chanced upon it in Happy Flour blog because I know my two VIM (very importance men) will like it. Basically the two men like almost anything made of coconut, that’s the reason why last year I chose to make this Pandan Kaya Cake.

This is considered my very first mousse cake but the method involved of making the mousse is not totally new to me. The method is very similar to this non-baked cheesecake and shortcut ice cream (fold in whipped whipping cream to the other mixture) except this time an egg yolk is added.

I made this cake yesterday (actual day of Father’s Day) and everything went quite smoothly. Thanks to Lucius’s unusual 3-hour long nap, I managed to complete the cake without disruption.

While waiting for the sponge cake to cool down, I tried to brainstorm how to decorate the cake. Since it was a mousse cake I did not want to cover the cake with cream, without much hesitation I took out the leftover fondant I had from my first fondant cake (shall blog about this in upcoming post), made three little roses and leaves free hand, a really simple one. I admitted that I didn’t do a good job, dad and D took a while to realize they were roses.

For the cake base, I adapted the recipe of traditional sponge cake using whole egg method from Alex Goh’s book, Fruity World. It was a breeze to beat the whole egg till ribbon stage with my new mixer (not KA, not KE, no it didn’t cost me a bomb, shall blog about it later. I have so many backlogs that I’d love to blog but I have not enough time! In the past, I always got to struggle with my small 180W mixer when came to beating of whole egg, it took me forever to reach the desired stage).

The sponge cake didn’t turn out as high as desired but it was really soft, moist and flavourful (because of the melted butter? Usually I use oil instead of melted butter in sponge cake). It was a little bit crumbly as compared to my other sponge cakes, not sure if it is due to overbeating of egg or replacing of plain flour with top flour or any other reason.

To decorate the cake, I placed the fondant roses at the centre of the mousse cake and piped shell around the edge with extra whipping cream (I whipped extra 20g of whipping cream when making the mousse). The cream turned soft by the time I started to decorate the cake at night, thus the pattern was not clear.

The cake was very well received by the two fathers as well as my mum. Dad mentioned he had never tasted such a cake before. Yes, this was also my first time having gula Melaka (palm sugar) mousse, I couldn’t recall I seen it selling in the market. Taste wise, I agree with Happy Flour that this cake tasted like “chendol”. Thanks to Happy Flour for sharing this unique recipe.

Sri Melaka Mousse Cake

Ingredients:

Pandan Sponge Cake (recipe adapted from Alex Goh’s Fruity World)
4 large eggs (A size)
120g castor sugar (I reduced to 90g)
½ tsp pandan paste
110g plain flour (I used top flour) (sifted twice)
70g melted butter

Mousse (recipe adapted from Happy Flour)
80g palm sugar/gula Melaka + 75g water
200g coconut milk (I used Kara brand UHT coconut cream)
1 egg yolk
2½ tbsp (18g) gelatine powder + 75g water
250g whipping cream (whipped)

Method:

Pandan Sponge Cake
1) Using an electronic mixer, whip egg, sugar, pandan paste until light and fluffy (ribbon stage).
2) Fold in flour with a hand whisk till well blended (no trace of flour).
3) Add melted butter and mix well.
4) Pour batter into a greased and lined 8” round pan (I only line the bottom and never grease the pan). Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 25 mins. Remove it from mould immediately when done (I cool the cake upside down and only remove the cake when it has cooled down slightly, run a small knife around the side of the cake and turn it out).

Mousse
1) Mix egg yolk and coconut milk together and set aside.
2) Boil palm sugar and water until sugar dissolved.
3) Pour the syrup into the coconut mixture and mix till combined. Cook over medium heat until slightly thicken.
4) Dissolve gelatine and water together over double boiler (keep stirring).
5) Mix gelatine into the coconut palm sugar mixture till combined and set aside to cool.
6) Use a hand whisk and slowly stir in whipped cream into coconut palm sugar mixture.

Assembly
1) Slice the sponge cake into 2 pieces horizontally (see note). Place a sponge cake at the bottom of an 8" springform round tin.
2) Pour ½ of the mousse mixture over the sponge slowly.
3) Place another sponge over the mousse and pour in the rest of the mousse.
4) Smooth the surface and chill until set.
5) To release the cake, run a small knife around the side of the mousse before open the ring.

Note:
1) Personally I feel that the cake tasted slightly sweet when eating alone but surprisingly the sweetness is just nice when eating with the mousse. So if I were to eat the cake alone I will further reduce the sugar (probably will only use 80g).
2) I trimmed the cake into about 7” before slicing. This is optional, alternatively you can make a 7’ sponge cake, 3 eggs recipe shall be just nice for 7” round cake.

3) You can use any sponge cake recipe of your choice for the cake base.