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Banana Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake with Rum

Happy Mother’s Day! I hope all the mothers in the world get the love that they deserve and feel extra special today. I cannot be physically be there with my family so this banana milk chocolate mousse cake is dedicated to my mum who has been loving, caring and supportive to her children.

Banana Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake with Rum

Banana Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake

This Banana Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake is what I call a classic beauty – it has a soft & fluffy chocolate sponge soaked in rum syrup, layered between is a smooth milk chocolate mousse filled with fresh banana pieces and chocolate crumbs. For decorations, I used ladyfingers dipped in Milk Chocolate, Vanilla Beans Chantilly and Pistachio Praline Sprinkles (recipe can be found here). A bite into this cake, you get so many layers of taste and texture. There’s nothing too complicated about it but everything just works well together. Even if you’re just a amateur in baking, I am sure you can nail this cake (if you read the instructions well, haha).

Banana Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake with Rum
Banana Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake with Rum

I created this recipe based on the Banana Chocolate Cake recipe by the Cooking Tree with some personal twists put on it. I have been a big fans of her desserts for a while now, as she has such a clean and simple approach to cakes that I absolutely admire. If you observe closely, there’s a lot to learn even though there isn’t one single spoken instruction in the videos. Her recipes give me a lot of inspirations and I can’t thank enough for her youtube tutorials.

Banana Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake with Rum

One thing that I want to say is that making the sponge and mousse might seem easy, but they have to treated very carefully and gently. Be sure that you don’t over-mix the cake batter or over-whip the mousse, or they can turn into disaster. I hope you enjoy this Banana Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake and again Happy Mother’s Day!

Banana Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake with Rum
Banana Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake with Rum

Ingredients:

Chocolate Sponge:
– 150g whole eggs
– 85g sugar
– 20g honey
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– 75g cake flour
– 10g cocoa powder
– 25g melted butter
– 40g milk

Milk Chocolate Mousse:
– 200g pure cream
– 100g milk chocolate, melted
– 1 tbsp dark rum
– 2 bananans

Chocolate Crumbs:
– 100g caster sugar
– 100g all purpose flour
– 60g cocoa powder
– 5g corn starch
– 1 tsp salt
– 85g unsalted butter, melted

Rum Syrup:
– 50g water
– 25g sugar
– 1 tbsp rum

Vanilla Beans Chantilly Cream:
– 200g pure cream
– 20g caster sugar
– 1 tsp vanilla beans paste

Decorations:
– LadyFingers dipped in Milk Chocolate
– Pistachio Praline
– Banana Pieces

Instructions:

Chocolate Sponge:
1. Preheat oven to 170C. Grease and line a 8inch cake pan and set aside.
2. Put eggs, sugar, honey, vanilla, extract in a mixing bowl and heat while whisking continuously on a Bain Marie (double boiler), until the mixture reaches 40C. With an electric mixer, whip the heated egg mixture with a whisk attachment on high speed until pale and fluffy to make sabayon (i.e. ribbon stage).
3. While the egg is whipping, sift cake flour, cocoa powder into a mixing bowl, and set aside.
4. Fold in the flour mixture into whipped egg mixture GENTLY with a spatula, until most four is not visible.
5. Put 2 tbsp of the cake batter into the melted butter, and mix until fully incorporated (this step is to let the butter attain a similar consistency with the cake batter, to ensure better incorporation). Then pour the butter mixture and the milk into the whole cake batter. Fold in gently until incorporated (do not over-mix to avoid knocking out all the air).
6. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan. Bake at 170C for 20-25 mins, until the cake spins back when you press on it gently.

Chocolate Crumbs (recipe by Christina Tosi):
1. Preheat oven to 150C. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Put sugar, flour, cocoa powder, corn starch and salt in a mixing bowl. Mix with the paddle attachment on low speed for 3 mins.
3. Pour melted butter into it until buttery crumbs are just formed. Do not over-mix or it will turn into a paste.
4. Spread the crumbs evenly onto the prepared baking tray. Bake at 150C for 20-15 mins. Set aside until ready to use.

Milk Chocolate Mousse:
1. Melt chocolate on bain marie or by microwave. Let cool for 5 mins.
2. Put pure cream and melted chocolate in a mixing bowl, whisk by hand until soft peak. Set aside in fridge.

Rum Syrup:
1. Put water and sugar in a small saucepan and bring it to boil. Off heat and and add in the rum. Set aside until ready to use.

Vanilla beans Chantilly:
1. Put pure cream, caster sugar and vanilla bean paste into a mixing bowl, and whisk until medium peak. This step can be done after the cake has been refrigerated for at least 2 hours.

Assembly:
1. Cut the sponge evenly into two layers with a serrated knife. Use a 6-inch metal cake ring to cut off the edge of the cake and get two 6-inch cake sponge sheets.
2. Put one layer of cake sheet into 6-inch metal cake ring as the base. Brush some rum syrup onto the cake to make it moist.
3. Cut bananas to get 5-7 pieces of the same size (you should determine the length of the banana pieces by putting it onto the cake sheet, the top of the banana piece should be 1cm below the top of the cake ring). Place the bananas, while allowing gaps to insert the chocolate mousse, onto the cake sheet,
4. Fill up the gaps with the milk chocolate mousse and use a off-set spatula to smoothen the top. Sprinkles Chocolate crumbs onto the mousse evenly.
5. Place the second cake sheet on, press slightly to let it stick, and brush rum syrup on.
6. Wrap the cake with plastic and put in refrigerator to set for 2-3 hours.
7. When the cake is set, carefully lift up the meal cake ring. Dip Lady Fingers in melted chocolate and immediately stick on the side of the cake. Refrigerate the cake for 10 mins for the chocolate to set. Pipe chantilly cream and put on banana and pistachio praline to decorate. Enjoy!

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Yuen Yeung – Hong Kong Style Milk Tea & Coffee Panna Cotta with Flourless Chocolate Cake and Feuilletine

This stunning Hong Kong-inspired Milk Tea and Coffee Panna Cotta with Flourless Chocolate Cake is a winner – smooth and creamy in every bite as it harmoniously combines the flavours of coffee and milk tea!   

Yuen Yeung - Milk Tea Coffee Panna Cotta with Flourless Chocolate Cake3

 

The inspiration of this dessert comes from the famous, humble Yuen Yeung well beloved by all Hong Kongers. Yuen Yeung (in Cantonese pronunciation), commonly known as Kopi Cham in Malaysia, is a popular beverage in Hong Kong’s cha chaan teng. Mixing strong coffee and Hong Kong style milk tea in the right ratio, you get a sweet and creamy drink that’s perfect served either hot or cold.

I transformed the concept into a two-layer panna cotta with the addition of flourless chocolate cake and some golden feuilletine. I always like the idea of making panna cotta in a wine glass, well, maybe because to me the shine of the glass automatically elevates the look of the final result.  Am I right? 

Yuen Yeung - Milk Tea Coffee Panna Cotta with Flourless Chocolate Cake

Just a little update of my recent life – I’ve been working hard for my placement and my body apparently wasn’t used to the high physical demand from work and it crashed… So here I am, snuggling up in blanket resting, while writing this post after much delay.

 

Yuen Yeung - Milk Tea Coffee Panna Cotta with Flourless Chocolate Cake2

My friend mentioned the word “adulting” when we chatted a few days ago, and the word just hits me. I guess “adulting” is something that can only be understood when experienced yourself. After I got my full time job, my life has been so preoccupied that my days seem to be set on repeat. Workplace is so much different from school – at school, when you screw up, it is all expected and there’ll be teachers to correct you and show you the right ways to do things; but in workplace, you got more responsibility on your shoulders and when you screw up, you screw up. It makes me feel the need to pay more attention to details while multitasking in the kitchen. Well.. at the end of the day, one thing that doesn’t change is that pastry fuels me.

P.S And you might have noticed that the styling of this series of pictures is different from the rest. It is all thanks to my newly bought “photography box” with its own LED lights. It is an immense help to me with my busy schedule, in the sense that I no longer have to solely rely on the sunlight as my light source for my photoshoot! But obviously I still need to learn more about how to use it properly. I hope you will enjoy the recipe!

Ingredients:

Milk Tea Jelly

  • 20g caster sugar
  • 250g water
  • 5 black tea bags
  • 250g evaporated milk
  • 2 tsp gelatin
  • 50g cold water

Coffee Panna Cotta

  • 50g brown sugar
  • 3 tbsp instant coffee powder
  • 300g cream
  • 100g full-cream milk
  • 2 tsp gelatin
  • 50 g cold water

Flourless Chocolate Cake

  • 125g unsalted butter
  • 150g dark chocolate
  • 60g brown sugar
  • 80g egg yolks
  • 80g caster sugar
  • 120g egg white
  • 140g almond meal

Notes:

  1. I created the layer effect by positioning the glass on a circular cutter in a way that the glass tilts. Therefore, before you start doing anything, make sure you have the right glass and a cutter that serves the purpose.
  2. The bottom layer has to set completely (which takes about 4 hours) before the second layer is poured in. So you need to plan ahead.

Directions:

Milk Tea Jelly

  1. Bloom the gelatin with cold water.
  2. Put caster sugar and water in a saucepan and bring it to a light boil. Turn the heat off. Put in the bloomed gelatin and mix with a whisk until completely dissolved.
  3. Put the tea bag into the water-gelatin mixture, and let the tea infuse for 20-30 mins. After the infusion, squeeze out all the liquid inside the tea bag before throwing them away.
  4. Add evaporated milk and mix gently.
  5. Pour the mixture into the glasses, and put the glass onto a circular cutter, and tilt it to an angle that you want. Keep in fridge to set for around 4 hours. (you can prepare the flourless chocolate cake meanwhile)

Coffee Panna Cotta

  1. Bloom the gelatin with cold water
  2. Put brown sugar, coffee powder, cream in a saucepan and bring it to a light boil. Turn the heat off. Put in the bloomed gelatin and mix with a whisk until completely dissolved.
  3. Add in the milk and mix gently. 
  4. When the milk tea jelly is set. Remove the cutter and pour the mixture into the glass. Keep in fridge to set for another 4 hours.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Note: as we are just using pieces of this chocolate cake as the topping, you can use whatever cake mould you want to suit your purposes. I used a 23cm square cake tin.

  1. Grease and line your cake tin. Set aisde. Preheat oven to 160C.
  2. Using a double boiler, melt butter. Add dark chocolate and whisk until completely melted. Remove from heat.
  3. Add in brown sugar and egg yolks. Whisk until incorporated. Set aside.
  4. Make meringue (soft peak) with egg whites and caster sugar.
  5. Fold ⅓ of the meringue into the chocolate mixture and combine well.
  6. Fold in the almond meal.
  7. Fold in the remaining ⅔ meringue into the mixture and combine well.
  8. Pour into the prepared cake tin. Bake at 160C for 45-50mins, or until a skewered inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Assembly:

  1. Take out some pieces from the flourless chocolate cakes with your hand and carefully put on top of the panna cotta. If desired, put some Feuilletine coated with gold lustre powder like I did.
  2. Enjoy the dessert cold.

 

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