Kudos Kitchen By Renee: FFWD - Double Chocolate Mousse Cake

OK I'll admit it. I'm like the worst person EVER for following instructions or taking direction. I don't know exactly why this is the case but it has always been one of my worst personality traits (and trust me, there are more where that came from).

So it truly baffles me that I've recently joined a few cooking and baking groups where you specifically have to read and follow directions AND to top it all off you have to show and tell the class how well you did in actually reading and follow "said" instructions. It's like I'm trying to set myself up for failure or something, or better yet, I'm challenging myself to overcome my self inflicted obstacles. There, that sounds much more positive and upbeat, don't you think?

Having said that, it is for that reason alone that I feared this cake was going to end up in the trash bin and not on this pretty little cake stand. Luckily I proceeded onward with the recipe (found on page 446 of "Around My French Table" by Dorie Greenspan) and didn't give into my fears of "the dreaded double chocolate mousse cake massacre" even though mine wasn't doing what the directions said it should. Surely I missed a step or ingredient or maybe a whole bunch of them... It's right after this picture that I get myself into trouble.

After mixing the mousse and then gently folding in my whipped egg whites, the thing that really threw me was when the instructions said to fill the spring form pan with a generous 1/3 of the chocolate mixture--- minus the bottom of the pan!!! Really, no bottom? (OK, I'll go with it) and bake it for 15 minutes, at which point it will be puffed (?) and when cooled will sink and look like a kind of bowl.

Well, not mine. Mine didn't rise at all. It remained about a flat as a quarter. I debated taking a picture of it but decided that I would save myself the embarrassment. After all, why bother when this certainly wouldn't be post worthy anyway. All I can guess is that somewhere along the way, I missed a step or there must be something dreadfully wrong with my egg white folding technique. Must work on that :) But, as I stated earlier, I carried on with not much hope of anything resembling an attractive cake or a blog post for that matter. However, if there is one thing I'm not, it's a quitter!

Filled with additional batter and baked (after the initial crust layer was baked) this is how my double chocolate mousse cake came out of the oven and how I transported it onto the pretty little cake stand. Luckily for me I had this really big spatula thingy since there was no pan bottom to help with the transportation from the baking sheet once the spring form sides were removed.

I'm more than happy to tell you that maybe I didn't screw this up too bad after all. Maybe. Time will tell as I won't be serving this until tomorrow evening when we'll be having company over to help us devour it. If the batter is any indication of how it will taste, I'd say it's going to be a winner. The crust however...maybe not so much. LOL

I sprinkled mine with confectioners sugar and some cinnamon and cocoa powder. I plan to serve it cold (Dorie gives you options for temperature preferences) with some nice scoops of vanilla ice cream or maybe whipped cream. To be determined :) Now, once more for fun...

I'll be looking forward to next weeks recipe of chicken b'stilla (found on page 222) and with any amount of luck (for the instructionally challenged like me), it will look as amazing as it does on the pages of Dorie's book (but don't hold your breath).