Strawberry Meringue Mousse Cake

I rarely bake the same cake twice in such a short time (1 week!!!) but I could not try the first one so I had to do it again, especially after all the nice compliments I had for the first one.

The first version was for the birthday of a wonderful 18 year-old girl who is studying in a fashion school so I chose to make a special decoration for her. I made a Chanel logo with white chocolate modelling paste (I am not a big fan of fondant in general) and used some copper metallic powder to make it look more classy. The green decorations are jelly jewels (can it be more girly???) and I used some tiny meringues I made with the leftover of the meringue from the recipe.

I followed the original recipe for the mirror glazing but I found it too liquid. Maybe I used it when it was still too warm but I think it came form the fact that the original recipe asked to use regular milk instead of sweet condensed milk. But in the end, nobody knew that it was not supposed to be transparent and I learned something…

The second version I made a week later for my own birthday. I had to make it gluten free for one of the guests. I simply replaced the flour by Maizena and had to put a bit more than required as it was quite sticky. In the end, I obtained a fragile and thinner biscuit but strong enough to put it in the cake.

For the mirror glazing, I tried another recipe with sweet condensed milk and I used red and pink food colouring gel. For the first version, I used only pink and I had to add a lot of it to get the color I wanted, or at least something close to it. The red really helped to make think more intense.

The glazing was thicker and definitely more covering even though you could still see through on few spots on the sides.

For the decoration, I chose something very simple and delicate : some sugar flowers and tiny silver balls I found in the baking shop I go to.

The original recipe is from Chloe Delice blog.

For the mirror glazing in the 2nd cake, I used this recipe which I recommend for any other cake with the color you want.

Because the cake needs to be frozen for the mirror glazing, you’ll have to prepare everything the day before (even the glazing which needs to be in the fridge for a night). If you want, you can also prepare the cake few days in advance and keep it in the freezer and prepare only the glazing the day before.

Ingredients for a cake of 20-22 cm:

Biscuit:

20g of egg yolk (about 1 yolk)
40g of sugar
1 vanilla pod
a pinch of salt
40g of soft butter.
55g of flour (or maizena/rice flour or any gluten free flour you
2,5g of baking powder (or baking soda for gluten free version – the baking powder I use contains gluten)

Meringue:

70g of egg whites (about 3 eggs)
120g of sugar

Insert:

100 g of fresh strawberries

Strawberry mousse :

250g of strawberries pulp (you’ll need about 600 g of fresh strawberries to get this amount of pulp)
70g of sugar
6g of gelatine
300g of cream

Pink mirror glazing:

75g of water
75g of sugar
150g of glucose
100g of sweet condensed milk
150g of white chocolate
8 g of gelatine
Red and pink food colouring gel

First thing : take the butter out of the fridge. It needs to be soft for the biscuit.

As it needs to be in the oven for about 2 hours, I recommend starting with the meringue.

Whip the egg whites in the bowl of your kitchen robot until the get almost completely firm. Then lower the speed and add the sugar. Put the speed higher and let it mix until the meringue ready.

Put the meringue in a piping bag and make a circle of about 18 cm on a tray covered with baking sheet. You’ll get more meringue that is needed so you can make small little ones around the circle for decoration if you want.

Bake in the oven for about 2 hours at 80˚C. If the meringue is still too soft in the middle, you can leave it a bit longer. Then leave it cool down and store it in a box to keep it dry.

In the meantime, you can prepare the mirror glazing.

Put the gelatine sheets in a bowl of cold water. Leave it aside.

Put the white chocolate in a big bowl.

Put the water, the sugar and the glucose in a pan and bring it to a temperature of 103˚C (you reach this temperature a bit after it started boiling). Turn the heat off and add the sweet condensed milk and the gelatine. Mix with a spatula until everything is incorporated. Pour this mix on the white chocolate and let it melt.

Mix everything with a spatula and then with an immersion blender. A lot of people say on Internet that you should try to avoid getting bubbles wile mixing but even though I get some bubbles, they disappear when I pour the glazing on the cake so don’t worry too much if you get bubbles.

Cover this preparation with plastic foil (directly on the glazing, otherwise you’ll get a thin crust layer) and leave it in the fridge for few hours or a night.

Next step will be to prepare the strawberries pulp. Put the gelatine in a bowl of cold water. Simply cut fresh strawberries and blend them on the lowest speed for few seconds. Then filter it using a stainless steel strainer to remove as much juice as possible.

When you get about 250 gr of pulp, mix it in a small pan with the sugar and bring it to the boiling point. Then turn off the heat, add the gelatine, mix well and let this preparation cool down.

At this point, the meringue should be ready so you can now prepare the biscuit.

Whip the egg yolk with the sugar until it gets white and foamy.

Add the soft butter then the flower, baking powder or soda, the seeds of the vanilla pods and the salt.

Make a ball with the dough and wrap it in plastic foil. Leave it cool down at least 30 min in the fridge.

Then, roll the dough in a circle of about the same size as the meringue. It may spread a little bit while baking in the oven.

Bake for about 15min at 180˚C. Leave it cool down.

Put the cream, the bowl of the kitchen robot and the whisk in the freezer for at least 10 min.

Whip the cream and then add it to the cold strawberry pulp.

Prepare the baking ring with acetate roll and place it on a plank covered with plastic foil. You’re going to build the cake upside down so the plastic foil needs to be as flat as possible.

Pour some strawberry mousse and make sure to cover all the surface inside the ring. Cut the 100 gr of fresh strawberries for the insert and put them on the mousse.

Put the meringue on top. Press it lightly . Put some more mousse on the side and on the meringue. Put the biscuit and press it a bit as well. Fill in the sides with the rest of the mousse and make sure the whole surface is flat and even.

Place the cake in the freezer.

On the day you want to serve the cake, warm up the mirror glazing. When everything is melted, let it cool down at room temperature until it reaches a temperature of about 35-38 degrees. Take the cake out of the freezer, remove the ring and the acetate roll. Place the cake on a bowl above a baking tray and pour the mirror glazing. As soon as everything is covered, remove the excess on the top with flat spatula in one quick movement. Let the glazing set a bit longer, remove the excess that leaked on the sides under the cake and transfer the cake on the serving plate.

Decorate as you want. Leave the cake in the fridge for few hours before serving.