Strawberry Fields for ever

I recently spent time in Europe, and while there, learnt the techniques behind making mousse cakes.  While we made a blueberry inspired mousse cake, I recently decided to give it a go now that I'm back in Australia.  Unfortunately, I only have two cake moulds, so I cant make these cakes as a permenant feature of the bakery, however, stay tuned in the next few months as we gather the necesary equipment to start making mousse cakes full time!

This strawberry inspired mousse cake has everything that is required in modern sweets - Taste with a delicate balance between strawberry, lime, white chocolate and a hint of mint.  Texture shared between the set mousse, rubbery marshmallow and the crunchy lime and mint insert.  Colour contrast between the white mousse, pink marshmallow and green insert, and finally, 4 layers of sponge, marshmallow, lime and mint insert and mousse.

Sponge Cake

Use a standard sponge cake recipe, spreading the cake so the finished product will be about 1-2 cm thick.

Strawberry Compote

1 Litre Water
1 Kg Sugar
3-4 Punnets of strawberrys.


Take the top off the strawberrys and cut into quarters.  Bring water and sugar to boil and drop strawberrys in.  Continue to boil for 2-3 minutes.

Marshmallow, after being whipped.

Strawberry Marshmallow

Take about 500 g of Strawberry Compote and put in mixing bowl with whisk.  While whisking, add 30g Gelitan disolved in 100mL water.  Keep whisking until light, fluffy and starting to set.




Lime, mint sugar syrup.

Lime and Mint crunchy insert

Bunch of mint
150 mL Lime juice
300mL Water
300g Sugar
Rice Bubbles to suit
Couple drops of green colour


Take leaves off mint and finely chop.  Put Sugar, water, lime and mint into a pot and boil until it is almost a brown caramel.  Once this stage has been reached, add rice bubbles and green colour until they have absorbed all the syrup.  Flatten out on a tray and place in fridge.


Flatten finished crispy insert on a tray.

White Chocolate mousse

6 Egg Whites
300g sugar
200g White chocolate, melted.
200mL Hot water
30g Gelitan
200g Whipped cream



Whip the egg whites and sugar to stiff peeks.  Disolve gelitan in hot water then mix in melted white chocolate.  Add gelitan/white chocolate mix to egg whites while whisking.  Fold in whipped cream.

After all this, comes the fun part of putting it together!


Cut out two disks of sponge cake, one about 8cm and another smaller peice about 4cm.  Soak the peices of sponge using some of the left over strawberry compote and place aside.

Cut out an 8cm disk of the crispy insert and place ontop of the 8cm disk of sponge cake.
Pipe an even layer of marshmallow ontop of the crispy insert.

Layer the sponge, marshmallow and insert on top of each other

We dont have any silicone mould trays, so we used a metal tray lined with cling wrap to make sure it would come out later.  Fill the first 3rd of the mould with mousse.  Place the small disk of sponge in place, and push down. Add another layer of mousse, then place the second piece of sponge with the insert and marshmallow upside down.  The bottom of the sponge should be level with the top of the mould.  Pack the rest of the mould with mousse until it is all level with the top of the mould.




Place the mould in the freezer.

Get some sugar and add red or pink colour to it.  Spread the sugar out evenly over a tray, then pipe long strips of marshmallow.  Place in the fridge to set, these will be used for decoration later.

After at least 2 hours in the freezer, take the mousse cake out for final decoration.  We used some neutragel with the rest of the compote added to it in a blender.  Pour this over the top of the cake, and decorate as desired.  If you cant get a hold of neutragel, you could use some melted white chocolate poured over the top.

Serve and enjoy!

Ps, I promise to work on my photography!

100% Hydration? Challenge accepted!

'Wow! 100% Hydrated! Good to see that you gave the dough a drink this morning!' Is probably what you are thinking if you arent a baker. 

When bakers talk about a bread recipe, the amount of water (or hydration) compared to the amount of flour is always a talking point.  A basic white block of bread has 60% water which is a basic bench mark for a bread dough.  Any less than this, and the dough is considered dry, any more water, and the dough gets stickier and harder to work with.

The wettest dough that bakers make is a Ciabatta and Turkish dough that generally take 80% to 90% water, and this is considered VERY wet.  But when I heard about a machine that can process doughs up to 97% water, I thought 'Who the hell is crazy enough to make bread that sloppy?'

Challenge accepted.  I will make a bread dough that is 95% water, and it will be the best in the world! (insert evil laugh).  So that turned out to be easy, mixing 5kg flour and 4.75L of water.  Once I got all that water in, I thought 'It is only 5% more to make it 100%... Why not go all out?' So I did.  With carefull mixing, and being very gentle when I cut it out, I managed to make a 100% hydrated dough.

Who would be crazy enough to make bread that sloppy?  I was.