Merry Charlotte Cake...

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival ! This mooncake festival has happily fallen on the eve of my mum's birthday this year, so it's a bit of a double celebration!

Due to the R&D we have been doing for the cake stall, there has been no shortage of cakes for the family to try. Though I was keen to make something a wee bit different for this double celebration... It's funny, I have always enjoyed baking, though due to this new little venture, I have found myself unexpectedly carried away by the excitment of trying out new ideas, new techniques, and day dreaming about possible flavour combinations... ;) It is a really creative process, and I am loving every minute of it...! Especially as I marry my two favourite hobbies, the baking and photography !

Anyways, I digress... so, back to the birthday cake - Following on from the lusciousness of Alex's Tiramisu last weekend, my love of sponge fingers was reignited, and I was inspired to make my own Charlotte cake...

The cake is probably the most involved project I have undertaken to date, especially as I couldn't decide what centre I wanted inside and so settled on a combination of layered mango and mixed berry mousse. I have never tried making mousse before, am not a dessert-making person, so to test something new was a bit daunting as well as exciting! Proceeding with much caution, it was touch 'n go, for a while. The sloppy mousse, although tasting very berry, did not resemble anything that was every going to set into anything beyond its milkshake consistency. It also didn't help that i was working off of a combination of various recipes. I don't know if anyone else does this, though do you find that when you are looking for a recipe, you really want the best of everyone's experiences, and end up just mixing and matching... probably not the best method, but I guess I have been lucky so far! :) Lady luck stayed with me for this one too, it did turn out well in the end... in a leap of faith, I just used the mousse-shake anyways, and it actually set! In fact, the mango layer did a little more than set, and was a little denser than I hoped... Though the berry one worked a treat - if asked to do it again, would I remember the proportions I used ? Probably not...

Sponge... Berry mousse... sponge... mango mousse... sponge and mango 'mirror'