chocoholics dream birthday trio

Last night we joined in the celebrations for our lovely friend Vicki's 60th birthday and what better way to celebrate such a wonderful lady than with a trio of her favourite chocolates. My original plan for a tea set cake sadly did not come to pass this time (very wet air in Toowoomba and a change of job at work put me on the back foot) but I do plan to go back to it at some point.
So anyway birthday cake phase two took shape as a cake version of three of Vicki's favourite chocolates.

Cake 1 - Chocolate Seashell.
Based on the Guylian Chocolate seashells with the praline ganache filling .... very yum. So I made the hazelnut praline to begin with, I have  half a jam jar full of the remaining nutty sugary powder, delish sprinkled on ice-cream.

I then filled a chocolate mudcake shell with delish mousse that had been gently mixed through with chocolate ganache and the blended praline.



I then added a layer of cake to the top and encased the whole thing in chocolate ganache. The whole cake was then swathed in a layer of marbled chocolate fondant. Colour and texture was added with modelling tools and chocolate brown, snow white and gold Barco dusts.

Finished off with a pair of red roses lightly brushed with gold lustre dust.

Cake 2 Strawberry Mousse Cup
This one was inspired by the Godiva Strawberry Trifle Cup. The base was a layer of Genoise Sponge moistened with Strawberry liquer. A delicious layer of French jelly (made with real strawberries of course) was topped with a very generous layer of strawberry mousse....I've even shared my recipe at the bottom of this post :-)
A sweeping of white chocolate ganache, some gold dusted chocolate panels and a trio of roses finished the cake. Sadly it was all eaten before I could snap a picture of the pretty layers.

Cake (well cake pops) 3 - the Lindt Chocolate Balls
Who doesn't love Lindt chocolate? A serious amount of Lindt went in to these divine little gold leafed treasures. With hearts of chocolate mud cake combined with Lindt Ganache and a splash of chocolate port, these little beauties where then dipped in dark lindt chocolate and the gold leaf was brushed on to the warm surface. Yummmmmm.

So together they made a very pretty and decadent dessert trio..........a perfect happy birthday.

And as promised, here is my recipe for the delicious strawberry mousse cake layer. Makes a wonderful dessert with the addition of some fresh berries and biscuit to garnish.

Strawberry Mousse
Puree 2 cups of fresh strawberries in the blender. Add 3/4 cup sugar and 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice.
In a small bowl glass bowl, sprinkle 1 sachet (1 tbsp) unflavoured gelatin over 1/3 cup cold water and leave to sit for a few minutes. Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir until disolved. Remove from the heat as soon as the gelatin has disolved.
Stir the gelatin into the strawberry puree and allow to thicken for about 10 minutes. In a large bowl  whip 2 cups of cream until medium stiff peaks.
Gently fold half the cream into the strawberry then fold the strawberry cream into the remaining cream gently with a rubber spatula.
Chill for minimum 30 minutes then spoon in to glasses.
To use in a cake, chill overnight tightly covered with cling wrap.
Enjoy.

XOXO