Mozart Birthday Cake

The layers, from top to bottom:

Dark chocolate glaze

Dark chocolate mousse

Dacquoise (meringue with nuts)

White chocolate mousse

Dark chocolate cream

Dacquoise

Ooooh Yeaah!!!!!! That's my Birthday Cake! Woot Woot!

I can't say anything negative about this cake except that you can't get enough of it and wake up in the middle of the night in horror of the thought it has been all eaten!!! The torture!

This is one of the most elaborate cakes I've made and all the layers go so well together, I'm so proud of it, especially proud of myself for not finishing the creams, meringues and mousses before assembling the cake, hooray to that!

Meringues:

Preheat oven to 110°.

Whisk egg white until soft peaks form, continue whisking and gradually add sugar until you result in a thick and shiny meringue. In a large bowl fold the sugar, hazelnuts and almonds gently into the meringue, it will deflate a little bit and that's ok.

Fill a piping bag fitted with a round tip, with the meringue mixture. Starting from the center moving out in circular motion creating a snail shaped base. Repeat this step.

Since this cake is made in a pan, you have to make sure the meringue discs fit the size of the pan, one way of doing that is to take a pencil, place the pan you are using on parchment paper and draw around it, then turn it over and pipe the meringue inside the borders you drew.

So after creating two meringue discs, place them in the oven for about two hour until firm and dry.

Mousses:

In a sauce pan heat heavy cream almost to a boil.

Prepare one bowl with dark chocolate and another one with the white chocolate, pour half of the cream on the dark and the other half on the white chocolate. Stir the chocolates until both form smooth creams. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Chocolate Cream:

Combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan and melt together, chill until use.

Finishing the mousses and assembling the cake:

In the cake pan place one meringue disc/base and top in with the chocolate cream.

In a mixer whisk the white chocolate mousse until fluffy, spread it on the chocolate cream.

Place the second meringue disc on top of the white mouse, press down gently.

Whisk up the dark chocolate mousse and spread in evenly on top of the second meringue disc.

Freeze for 24 hours.

After 24 hours, making the glaze:

Melt the chocolate and cream together and pour it over the frozen cake, freeze for 10 minutes.

Release the cake from the pan by heating up the sides using a kitchen towel soaked in hot water. After releasing the cake, press the nuts of your choice on to the sides of the cake.

The recipe says to keep the cake in the freezer and move it to the fridge 4 hours before serving, I found that here in the Israeli weather the cake got way too soft after 4 hours in the fridge, and would rather serve it frozen, kinda like ice cream cake. yum....

Mozart Cake:

Meringue:

4 egg whites

½ cup sugar

¾ cup confectioner's sugar

¾ ground hazelnuts

¾ ground almonds

Mousses:

750 ml heavy cream

225 gr bitter sweet chocolate, chopped

225 gr white chocolate, chopped

Chocolate Cream:

100 gr dark chocolate

1/3 cup heavy cream

50 gr butter

Glaze:

½ cup heavy cream

150 gr dark chocolate

1 ½ cups chopped nuts, praline or caramel brittle

(I used the left over ground hazelnut)

Notes:

• I would recommend using the darkest chocolate you can find for this cake, it is sweet enough believe me.

• Take in concern that this cake needs to be made at least one day in advance.

• The cake keeps up to a week in the freezer.