Chocolate Mousse Torte
This torte, from legendary baking book author Maida Heatter, was awarded the New York Times Dessert of the Year Award in 1972. Much has changed in the world of food since then, but this torte remains a wonderful dinner party dessert for chocolate lovers.
In this unique creation, part of the mousse is baked in a pie pan until just set, much like a flourless chocolate cake. Upon cooling, the remainder of the mousse is gently spooned on, then a cloud of whipped cream tops the torte. The interplay of the three textures found in the baked portion, the soft mousse, and the light whipped cream is a delight.
I have made several modifications to the original recipe. The breadcrumbs used to line the buttered pie dish have been changed to chocolate wafer crumbs1 to better meld with the rest of the ingredients.
Maida Heatter calls for adding one tablespoon of dissolved coffee powder to the melted chocolate. While coffee is often used to add a background note to chocolate desserts, the one tablespoon made the coffee flavor too pronounced and has been reduced to one teaspoon. Feel free to adjust this to your own taste or eliminate altogether.
Most importantly, the ratio of mousse to baked mousse has been increased. On the first test bake, the tasters felt there wasn’t enough mousse, so I experimented with setting aside an additional one cup prior to baking the remainder, and it was perfection.
Dinner party note – make sure your guests see this gorgeous torte in its whole, uncut state. It is a challenge to get perfect slices on the plate.
Baked chocolate mousse, chocolate mousse, vanilla scented whipped cream, and the only required tools are a mixer and a nine-inch pie pan – Chocolate Mousse Torte is easy to love.
Chocolate Mousse Torte
| Yield: One 9†pie pan | # of Servings: 8 to 10 |
Ingredients
8 oz chocolate (227 g), 55% to 61% chocolate, wafers or broken up
1 tsp instant coffee powder (optional)
¼ cup boiling water2
8 egg yolks
â…“ cup sugar (2.4 oz / 68 g)
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 egg whites
Pinch salt
â…“ cup sugar (2.4 oz / 68 g)
1 ½ cups heavy cream
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract
Chocolate wafer crumbs, as needed (see note 1)
Special equipment needed:
- One 9†by 1.25†pie plate
Pre-recipe preparations:
- Butter a 9†by 1.25†pie plate, and dust with chocolate wafer crumbs.
- Preheat oven to 350 °F
Directions
- Place chocolate in a large mixing bowl. Dissolve the coffee in boiling water and add to chocolate.
- Melt in a microwave or over a double boiler. Set aside.
- In machine bowl, using wire whip beat the egg yolks, vanilla, and sugar for approximately 5 minutes, or until very thick and light lemon colored.
- Add to the chocolate, and stir until well-blended.
- In a clean mixing bowl, beat the whites with the salt until soft peaks.
- Slowly add the sugar and beat to just stiff meringue.
- Stir ¼ of the whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten, then fold in remainder just until whites are blended in.
- Set aside 5 cups (16 .2 oz / 459 g) of the mousse and refrigerate.
- Gently pour the remainder of the mousse into the pie plate and level w/o deflating the mousse.
- Bake until just firm and a cake tester reveals only a few moist crumbs, between 14 and 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack.
- When cool, gently spread the remaining mousse into the center of the baked mousse in the pie plate.
- Place in refrigerator for at least 3 hours.
- Whip the cream with the sugar and vanilla just until firm peaks. Pipe or spread over the top. Sprinkle with chocolate shavings or dust with cocoa powder.
Notes:
1 Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers used to be the default cookie for chocolate crumbs. However, Nabisco has stopped making them. Two alternatives are Goya Chocolate Maria cookies, and Oreo Thins. The Goya cookies are a crisp, simple wafers that work well as crumbs. However, they are a lighter color than the old Famous Chocolate Wafers, which were almost black.
Crumbs made from Oreo thins will most closely resemble the Famous Chocolate Wafers in color and taste, especially if the cookies are twisted open and the white filling is scraped out.
2 The water is necessary even if you don’t use the coffee
