Adriano Zumbo's Chocolate Mousse Cake (from Masterchef)

I don't know what possessed us to attempt this cake. It took my husband and I 4 hours to make it. We were alternating between mixing the 5 different layers, cooking it, assembling it, decorating it and trying to keep our son entertained as well. Poor little guy. Here are the photos...

Pate sable cinnamon (in the oven)
Texture apple tatin insert - Part A


Texture apple tatin insert - Part B


Salted Caramel Layer (we should have cooked this for longer)

Cigarette decor paste - this was the decorated part on the side of the cake. You really need a blast freezer for it to work out because it didn't set fast enough for the contrasting colours to show.

Biscuit jaconde mixture (used with the cigarette decor paste to make the decoration and also one of the layers in the cake)

Spreading the Biscuit jaconde mixture on top of the Cigarette decor paste

Halfway through our baking and this is the mess already.....we

ran out of clean pots and mixing bowls and had to clean some up to continue on
This was suppose to be Blackberry ganache stage but we couldn't find any fresh or frozen blackberries at the store so we used strawberry instead.

Sabayon

Mixing the straweberry ganache with the sabayon to form Chocolate strawberry sabayon mousse

1st layer - the mousse

Mousse

2nd layer - salted caramel (the caramel is suppose to be poured into a silicone mould and then placed in the blast freezer). Since I didn't have a blast freezer I had to just pour it straight on top of the mousse layer cold. I'm sure this affected the overall appearance too because it was just too runny.

3rd layer - jaconde

4th layer - mousse

5th layer - apple tatin

6th layer - sable (6th layer should actually have been another jaconde followed by the 7th layer of mousse and then the final 8th layer should be the sable but the tin was already full and we ran out of mousse)

This was the first cake (we ended up making 2 because our cake tins must be really small)

See how the Cigarette decor paste didn't show up on the side of the cake - you need the blast freezer.

This is pathetic I know. But I don't have a sugar thermometer so I couldn't make the Tempered chocolate. We had to make do with one big swirl and our "stone henge" decoration instead. We also were not going to use a paint gun to decorate it so just sprinkled cocoa on the top instead.

It takes a lot of concentration to cut a cake (well when you are 2 it does...)

And how was the layering? Yikes scroll down, the second cake looks better!

(still the first cake)

Here's the second cake (minus the decorations because by this stage we were over it and just wanted a slice)

Slice from the second cake (below). Still pathetic. Click here to see what it's really suppose to look like.

Not Quite Nigella is one of my favourite food blogs to visit and she was fortunate enough to try Adriano Zumbo's Chocolate Mousse Cake. I'm so jealous! See the difference between mine and the real thing. Man, Mr Zumbo would be falling on the floor laughing by this stage.

Squint and you might be fooled....

So how did it taste. Pretty darn good. I think if we had cooked the caramel for longer it would have made a big difference. Would I make it again? Probably not. It took me 4 hours for crying out loud and that's with 2 people at it! There was just so much to do and it was really involved. Not to mention the cleaning afterwards too! I'd make the apple tatin insert again and use it for an apple pie. I'd also make the mousse on it's own and just eat a tub of that.

I'm glad we attempted it. It was a real challenge and I have all new respect for the Masterchef contestants and Mr Zumbo himself. Amazing.

Almost forgot, here is the recipe. Remember my cake does not resemble anything like the real one because I don't have a sugar thermometer or a blast freezer....and I'm not Adriano Zumbo. Well that's my excuse anyway.