Strawberry Mousse Cake

In class last week we made Genoise cakes in the egg-levening segment and refrigerated them to use this week with the mousses.

Using gelatin to make a stable Pate a Bombe mouse with strawberry puree, we filled the top of the cake, held together with cellophane and refrigerated it until it hardened a little.

It looks SO cute, and tasted great! Light and fluffy like a strawberry short cake .

Porto's Bakery & Café

I went to Porto's in Burbank today, and was not only completely overwhelmed with their elaborate selection of food & baked items, but I was in shock to see how bizarrely cheap everything was! I was extremely impressed with how fresh and flavorful everything was, and will certainly be going here more often. Seriously incredible.


{Click on Photos to Enlarge}


Chocolate Croissants


Cakes


Turkey and Swiss Croissant


Blueberry Muffin



Roulade - Almond Cake with Chocolate Mousse and Raspberry Jam


Glazed Coconut Ball




Mango Mousse




Guava Cream Cheese Pastry

Taste of Beverly Hills

Last week Food & Wine Magazine hosted Taste of Beverly Hills to celebrate both the food of the city and the date, 9.02.10. There were hundreds of restaurants and vendors displaying all kinds of pastas, pizzas, meats, breads, cheeses, wines, and desserts!! Think of it as a classy all you can eat buffet - there was so much food it was scary. I don't think I've ever eaten this much in my life.

There was too much food to photograph, so I really kept it to desserts, but I had to share my two favorite savory foods of the night.

IL CIELO

Rotolini Pasta with Truffle Oil, My favorite non-dessert dish, I went back for this 3 or 4 times...

CABBAGE PATCH

Turkey Meatball with Peanut Cole Slaw, It's not on their regular menu but should be, it was so tasty.

THE PATISSERIE AT THE SLS HOTEL

Hazelnut chocolate squares, fruit gumdrops, chocolate chip cookies.


Chocolate drizzle lollipop with orange gummy fruit.


Chocolate covered Pop Rocks.

IL CIELO

Mini chocolate lava cake.

BOUCHON

Chocolate mousse with espresso caviar, sea salt brownie, peach custard.

MICKEY FINE

Assorted candies.

THE FARM

Their famous brownies, cubed.

CHEESECAKE FACTORY

Red velvet cake.

NEIMAN MARCUS

Giant chocolate chip cookie, recipe included.

CHOCOLATE BY M

Hazelnut chocolate with raspberry jam center.

AMERICAN TEA ROOM

Caffeine free chocolate tea.

PATINA

Green tea ice cream on a green tea sponge cake with white chocolate mousse.

PERSIAN SWEETS

Sugar!



HANSEN'S



Marble cake with chocolate buttercream.

Alcove

Last weekend I ate at Alcove in Silverlake, which is known as a great bruch and lunch spot, but I remember it for it's desserts.


They have an amazing bakery section with massive cakes.


Black and White Mouse Cake - This was insane! The top half was white chocolate mouse that must have had cream cheese in it, it was so light an fluffy and tasted like cheese cake. Below that was a milk chocolate mouse, followed by a chocolate cake bottom. The outside was a dark ganache with white chocolate flakes.

La Mousse

Sarah's second birthday cake was from La Mousse, one of her childhood favorites. It was great! It's hard to find a good mousse cake, and this one was incredible. The mousse was thick and sat above a layer of Oreo cookie crumbles, and topped with whipped cream. Since mousse melts, we kept it in the fridge, and the coldness added a great texture to the whole thing. It was quite the cake.

Passover Mousse

It's usually hard to enjoy desserts over Passover since you can't use flour, however Tyla's famous mousse makes you forget all of that. This flourless kosher-chocolate mousse is amazing, so light and fluffy yet rich in taste. Despite eating an enormous amount of food at the seder, I had two cups of this mousse. Yum.

Park Avenue Autumn

YUM. My Dad took me out to dinner the night before Thanksgiving to Park Avenue Café - which changes it's name, decor and menu with the seasons. For Autumn, they have a very festive menu, and when I say we ordered everything... it's not a joke. The food was so good I almost considered photographing my meal for this post, but I didn't come up for air while I was eating, and therefore did not take pictures. I could go on and on about all the plates we ordered, but I'll stick to dessert.

We ordered The Chocolate Cube, their signature dessert. It was really good. The hard dark chocolate shell surrounded a fluffy milk chocolate mousse that was flavored with various spices. The chocolate sorbet that it was served with was delicious, very rich and creamy.



Like true Jewish New Yorkers we also ordered the Creme Fraiche Cheesecake with Warm Figs and Red Wine Fig Sorbet. This cheesecake was no Carnegie's but was so good! It was also served with little crepe popsicles that were interesting, and fun to eat, because who's had a mini crepe on a stick before? The red wine sorbet was really interesting too, it tasted exactly like red wine, and went well with the cake. My dad got an extra side of Toasted Almost ice cream, because we clearly didn't have enough, and it was surprisingly my favorite of the three ice creams/sorbets we had!



Look here at their menu so you can drool over both the food and desserts. I definitely want to go back here for "Winter".

Break Fast

This post needs very little explanation. I went over to a friends house for his family's Break Fast for Yom Kippur and as it is every year, both the food and dessert spreads were unbelievable. My friend's mom is the best cook ever, and her dessert room (yes room) really was incredible, everything you could imagine was there. Just look over the photos and drool.

I encourage you to click on the photos to see them full size. You dont want to miss a crumb.






Chocolate Cake - This was so rich! It was almost like a brownie, very soft with chocolate chips and chocolate icing. So great.


Poppy Seed Cake - A classic at this household. Very unique, so moist and not too sweet!


Coconut Mouse - Imagine a thick whipped cream with coconut flakes. So good with the strawberries!




Peanut Butter Balls - The Infamous. Always a treasure in this house, and always amazing. It's a secret what's inside!


Jelly Diamonds - The Regular Guest. Made by a family friend, these are always a hit for this holiday. Each layer a different flavor, not only delicious, but fun food to play with!


My Plate - I had to try everything! I think my favorite which is on my plate but not photographed separately was the chocolate mousse and the cheesecake! I also poured a ton of strawberry sauce over on the cakes. Serious food coma last night!