How to make Tiramisu chocolate mousse cheesecake, part 1

Saturday 3rd December 2011, Recipe 20111203

How to make Tiramisu chocolate mousse cheesecake, part 1 – an introduction

It was one of those days when I was watching someone make a Tiramisu when I had an epiphany for a chocolate cake. I thought to myself that the raw eggs would be risky to serve to children and, you know, the cheese they use … I forget the name … ‘Mascara Pony’ cheese I think. As I was conjuring up these ideas, then it hit me. I could convert the chocolate mousse into a chocolate cake. Skip the skip the raw eggs, … skip everything and what do you have … chocolate mousse, cheese cake and biscuits – the Tiramisu biscuits, a tiramisu style chocolate cheesecake.

 

Tiramisu does sounds Japanese, doesn’t it? In fact for along time as a kid, having heard about Tiramisu and not having tried it, I thought it was some exotic Japanese seaweed dish.

 

I hope you would have read my spin on Hervé This’s Chocolate Mousse now I will convert it to a chocolate mousse and cheesecake with biscuits. If you had read my previous article on mixing cocoa powder, oil & sugar you would know that by accident I found out that cocoa powder could be made into chocolate at room temperature. Hence this Tiramisu evolved from a combination of experiments I had carried out earlier.

 

 

The recipe for the Tiramisu chocolate mousse cheesecake – Peter’s Tiramisu (?)

 

 

Dark chocolate mousse
Item	Ingredients	Percentage	Weight	Weight
		(%)	(g)	oz.
1	Cocoa Powder	100	100	3.52
2	Sugar	150	150	5.28
3	Butter	30	30	1.06
4	Cocoa Butter	100	100	3.52
5	Water	100	100	3.52

 

 

Chocolate cream mousse
Item	Ingredients	Percentage	Weight	Weight
		(%)	(g)	oz.
1	Chocolate mousse	100	360	12.67
2	Whipping Cream	55	198	6.97

 

 

 

Cream cheesecake
Item	Ingredients	Percentage	Weight	Weight
		(%)	(g)	oz.
1	Cream Cheese	100	225	7.92
2	Icing Sugar	20	45	1.58
3	Whipping Cream	45	101.25	3.56

 

 

Photos of the Tiramisu chocolate mousse cheesecake making process

 

Make the chocolate mousse first and this time around I have discovered and extremely easy way of making the chocolate mousse.

 

 

Weigh soft dairy butter which is at room temperature, cocoa butter, sugar. Do weigh everything in a tumbler that can be microwaved and can withstand boiling hot water, as this will make your ‘chocolate mousse making’ life easier for you.

 

 

I had suggested a tumbler or plastic jar that could be used in a microwave as if your butter is too hard you can stick it in the microwave for 30 seconds (850 Watt microwave) and melt the butter.

 

 

Pour boiling hot water into the tumbler. This will melt the cocoa butter and help dissolve the sugar. The hot water allows for uniform dispersion of the ingredients in the dark chocolate mousse.

 

 

Whisk it with a stick blender so that the sugar dissolves in the hot water and that there are no grainy pieces of sugar when you are eating the cake. This ensures that the cocoa butter is completely dispersed within the mixture. Today after having used this cocoa butter for all my experiments, I realised that I was using cocoa butter substitute. It is almost impossible to get cocoa butter in Malaysia. The baking and pastry specialist shops only stock this cocoa butter substitute and do not have any real cocoa butter.

 

 

Now add the cocoa powder.

 

 

Stir the cocoa powder into the mixture before switching on the stick blender. This will prevent the cocoa powder from flying into the air and into your face and all over the kitchen. Switch on the stick blender and blend for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes of blending you will see a very smooth, shiny, dark chocolate mousse.

 

 

Pour a quarter, about 120g, of the chocolate mousse into your final dish to make a dark decorative layer at the bottom.

 

 

The balance of the dark chocolate mousse is very dark smooth and shiny. You will see one or two lumps and this is the undissolved granulated white sugar I had used. You could use icing sugar which is much easier to dissolve. My friends who gorged on the cake did not notice the granulated sugar. Add the balance of the 200ml packet of whipping cream into the dark chocolate mousse and blend it for 5 minutes. It will turn a lighter and more ‘chocolatety’ colour. This is the chocolate cream mousse.

 

 

Make some very strong coffee. It can be mocha, espresso or any other fancy coffee. I made a strong Nescafe Classic.

 

 

Dunk the tiramisu biscuits in the strong coffee, topside, and place them into the dark chocolate mousse layer. Press them down a little so that they are held in place. You will notice that I had trimmed those on the right of the picture to make them fit into my dish.

 

 

This is the cheesecake part of the recipe. I am not using mascarpone cheese but good ole Philadelphia cream cheese. Add the icing sugar and cream and mix well with the stick blender. You will need to use icing sugar instead of regular sugar here so that the sugar dissolves properly into the cheese. It will come out as a very smooth and shiny paste. Then mix in the cherries – which is what I forgot to do. Actually I forget a few other steps but I will show them in the next recipe.

 

 

Look at how beautifully smooth and shiny the cheese has become. As you can see I had forgotten to mix in the cherries.

 

 

So I stuck the cherries in by hand. Do insert some of the cherries along the side of the dish so that the dish will look very attractive. Don’t cut the cherries too tiny. Do cut the cherries into halves or quarters, large pieces so that they will look attractive and there will be chunks of cherries when you are eating the cake.

 

 

Pour the rest of the chocolate cream mousse on top of the cheesecake layer. You will notice that because the cheesecake was not pressed to the side of the dish the chocolate cream mousse has flowed in and filled the space between the cream cheese and the sides of the dish. So the cream cheesecake layer and the cherries are partially hidden.

 

 

I left it in the fridge overnight and this improves the texture. I couldn’t resist the temptation.

 

 

It almost tasted like an ice cream, a chocolate ice cream. I really did regret giving away some to my friends.

 

 

I am definitely, going to make an improved version of this Tiramisu chocolate mousse cheesecake tomorrow.

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This article “ How to make Tiramisu chocolate mousse cheesecake, part 1 ” was researched and written by Peter Achutha