apple mousse spice cake.

I think my attempt at some artistic drizzling was a huge flop when my equally huge cake tried to outdo my container in height and the cover mercilessly smooshed the top down. And then of course, the caramel stuck to the cover and I frantically tried to paste the caramel back to where it was. Yes I do mean paste. Apparently caramel doesn't ever freeze so my swirls got deformed- back to square one.

So I had an ugly cake and I was seriously starting to worry that it would taste as bad as it looks, never mind that the recipes I chose didn't give me any confidence. But it turned out great! Not exactly a show-stopper in looks, I agree, but I'm really pleased with how it tasted. The cake is a recipe from Taste of Home magazine and if you click over to the website, you'll find that there are no reviews for the recipe yet. That was the thing that disturbed me. It tasted okay actually, not the best spice cake I've eaten, but it was moist and not overly spicy but personally, it could do with a bit less sugar.

I cut the recipe down to a third and baked it in an 8 inch pan, hoping that I would get a thin enough layer because I was planning for this to be an entremet. As you can see, the ratio of cake to mousse is probably more than 1:1 so I don't think it qualifies anymore.
Finding an apple mousse recipe isn't easy. Try typing apple mousse recipe and you'll find oh I don't know... 1 page worth of relevant results? In the end, I settled for a recipe from here with a few tweaks. I know she said that the mousse didn't taste strongly enough of apple but I definitely disagree.

So basically, the layers went like this: cake, sauteed apples, mousse, cake, sauteed apples, mousse and then caramel. I did it by strewing the apples in a 7 inch pan, pouring the mousse in and let the whole thing freeze. After 3 to 4 hours, I set the mousse on top of the cake, trimmed off the excess edges and then cut the cake into half. Take a half and place it on top of the other. Ta-dah! Much easier, methinks.

So here are the individual components of this cake:

Applesauce Cake
slightly adapted from Taste of Home

2 eggs
1 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a 9 x 13 inch pan.

Combine eggs, applesauce, brown sugar and oil in a bowl. Mix the rest of the ingredients separately in another bowl, add to the applesauce mixture and mix well.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out mostly clean but with a few moist crumbs attached. Cool on a wire rack.

Apple Mousse
slightly adapted from The Sweet Spot

100ml applesauce
80ml cream, whipped
1 egg white
31g sugar
6g powdered gelatin
1 to 2 tbsp water

Soak gelatin in water until softened, about 5 minutes. Heat the gelatin until it dissolves then add it to the applesauce. Beat the egg white to medium peaks, gradually adding the sugar. Fold the puree into egg whites before folding in the whipped cream. Do not over mix. Pour into a mold to freeze until set.