Chocolate Mousse Cake with Raspberries

Second installment of Katrina's birthday month cakes - this amazing and delicious mousse cake with fresh raspberries! We knew this would be fantastic even before we tasted it, and it absolutely was. And it's not even hard! There's a lot of downtime to the process as you wait for the mousse to chill, but actual labor time is pretty short here. And the cake looks like you put hours into it!

Chocolate Mousse Cake with Raspberries

Servings: 24
Time: 4 hours (but mostly that's just chilling time between steps!)

Ingredients:
Cake:
1 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup greek yogurt
1 cup very hot coffee
2 tsp vanilla
3 eggs

Chocolate mousse:
1 1/8 tsp gelatin
1 1/2 Tbsp water
9 oz semisweet chocolate chips
2 1/4 cups heavy cream, divided
1/4 cup powdered sugar

Frosting:
1 cup butter, softened
1/4 tsp salt
4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 Tbsp whole milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 pints fresh raspberries

Instructions:
To make mousse:

1. In a small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over water and let stand 5 minutes.
2. In large bowl, microwave 3/4 cup heavy cream until it comes to a boil.
3. Stir in gelatin.
4. Add chocolate chips and let sit for one minute.
5. Whisk until chocolate is fully melted and smooth.
6. Use electric mixer to whip the remaining heavy cream until it begins to thicken.
7. Add powdered sugar and continue to whip until stiff peaks form.
8. Fold 1/3 of whipped cream into chocolate mixture. Add remaining whipped cream and fold in.
9. Chill for 2-3 hours, until stiff.

To make cake:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 3 9" cake pans with parchment paper and grease with shortening.
2. In the bowl of your electric mixer, combine dry ingredients.
3. In medium mixing bowl, whisk together oil, yogurt, coffee, and vanilla.
4. Add wet mixture to dry ingredients and beat on medium speed for 1 minute.
5. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat for another minute.
6. Divide batter evenly among the three pans and bake for 25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
7. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

To make frosting:

1. Cream butter, sugar, and salt.
2. Add powdered sugar and cocoa alternately with cream. Add vanilla.
3. Add milk to thin to spreadable consistency.
4. Beat for 2 minutes until light and fluffy.

To assemble cake:

1. Cut most raspberries in half the long way. Save a few whole berries for garnish if desired.
2. Place one cake section on cake stand.
3. Spread with half of mousse.
4. Top with roughly half of your raspberries.
5. Top with second cake section.
6. Spread second half of mousse.
7. Top with all other raspberries except those reserved for top of cake.
8. Cover with final cake section.
9. Refrigerate for 30 minutes until mousse is firm again.
10. Frost and garnish with remaining berries.

Here are some more drool-worthy pictures for those of you, like us, who are into that sort of thing.

Spread half your mousse on your first cake layer

Then you layer lots of raspberries

...repeat...

Finish layering and chill the mousse

Frost and garnish

Eat!

Raspberries and chocolate are a match made in heaven. We used raspberries when they weren't even in season, and this cake was still amazing. As tempting as it will be to hoard this cake and eat it all yourself, we recommend sharing.

Yum