Chocolate mousse cake

Who ever said you can't change your stars?
I say I can! I say I am lucky to be able to, to think that I can and to actually do.
One day I might tell the tale of my shifting tides,  how one can dream of being an artist and end up a scientist and the again all other things. But this is not that day, today I want to talk about the marvelous transformation power of a chocolate mousse into a chocolate fondant souflé.
Why can't a mousse become a souflé?
What is after all a souflé? A souflé is a french word for fluffy oven backed dish based in puffing of beaten egg whites.
And what is a mousse? It is a french word for fluffy dish based on the puffing of beaten egg whites.
You can by now see the great potential of mousses to become souflés?
The greatness of this is, it is so simple, such a rich and complex outcome and you can easily end up with two deserts -cake with "icing" and mousse- for a party by the swift trouble of an easy one -chocolate mousse. I apologise in advance for repeating myself, and giving very low level tips but I guess we all need remebering why we do things from time to time or life loses sense.

Chocolate mousse for 6:

• 200gr Dark chocolate for backing - be sure to chose the one you like the taste the most, because the whole dish flavor will depend mostly on its flavor
• 6 eggs - I would say fresh, but that goes without saying
• 125gr of sugar
• 1 table spoon of unsalted butter (or soy margarine for the lactose-free version)

Recipe:

1. Melt the chocolate with the butter. The butter keeps the chocolate from burning so put it in the bottom of the pan. Or just use the microwave, but make sure to keep stopping to stir, it is very easy to get chocolate burned while it isn't melted when heating it on the microwave.
2. While that is happening whisk the eggs yolks with the sugar until the color is lighter and you start to get some foam. By then the chocolate is melt but hot, so leave it to cool down a bit you don't want to cook the eggs.
3. Whisk the eggs whites until they can stand upside down without falling from the boul. (You will need to add a pinch of salt for them to gain body.)
4. Move the chocolate to make sure it is still soft and liquid and check with your finger to see if it isn't too hot. Then whisk the chocolate with the sugar and egg yolk mix until you get it dissolved.
5. Incorporate the egg whites gently with a whisk. (The reason I use "incorporate" and not mix and mention that it has to be done with a whisk is because this egg whites construction is very delicate and will break down to liquid if violently stirred.)

 Chocolate mousse cake:

1. 2 x chocolate mousse for 6. (the next steps should be little time after preparing the mousse, while it is still not tough)
2. Separate a third or forth of the chocolate mousse and put it to rest in the fridge.
3. Use butter to cover your oven cake pan. (unless it is silicon in which case you need no coverin)
4. Put the rest of the chocolate mousse in the pan and put it in a pre heated 190C (fan) 170C (gas) oven for about 20min. If you smell the cake all over the place you are getting close.
5. The tricky part now is that if a souflé catches a breeze of cool air it will fall and lose fluffiness. Close all your windows and doors of the kitchen, and use a tooth-pic to probe the cake and see if it is cooked at least to the tooth-pick full length. Then turn the oven off and leave the cake inside to cool gently and slowly... leave the door of the oven open or it might take forever.
6. Once the cake is cold wrap it with the part of the mousse that was set aside and keep it in the fridge until serving.

 The other great thing about this desert is that you can't go wrong. You cooked it to little, so what? It gets a mousse core. You let it catch a breeze and it broke down, so what? It is still puffy, and yummy chocolate cake and no one will get to see it beneath the "icing". It is over cooked, so what? unless you burned it, it won't get dry with the icing.

Tips:

• If you are planning on making dishes that make use of egg yolks and have egg whites to spare this mousse can take as much as 3 more egg whites per dose. In fact you might end up with a puffier version. Do keep in mind, though, that this will make the souflé more prone to breaking down. 
• I know a chocolate cake with chocolate mousse frosting or icing, or whatever you must call it is already a great fun. But can you imagine if it has yet another cover layer of Chantilly? Real Chantilly, the one you beat out of cream... it is so simple to do and can go such a long way.  Just beat cool -important that the initial temperature of the cream is low because you don't want them to heat up with the movement and end up with freshly made butter- 125gr of cream with 3 table spoons of sugar until it looks like you have dense clouds that stand on their own. Just drop the whole thing on top of the cake, making a mountain of it and with the spatula twist the mountain surface to your artistic design. It is candy for the eye and such a great bite.
• What I do for parties is make 3 x the chocolate mousse recipe and use 2 for making the cake, one for making the mousse. Then make the Chantilly that I use to top both. Perfect for parties.

Portuguese style chocolat chip cookies

There are chewy, crispy and soft chocolate chip cookies.
There are chocolate chocolate chip cookies and oat meal chocolate chip cookies.
There are cookies that crumble and cookies that crack on your mouth.
We all have a version we love, there is always one with its way to our heart.
For a portuguese, cookies are thick and tough and smooth and dry and sweet but not too much.
This cookies recepie is an adaptation of Martha Stewart's chocolate chip cookies recepie and will give you about 20 cookies (http://www.marthastewart.com/344840/soft-and-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies).

• 100gr white sugar
• 200gr brown sugar
• 500gr all purpose flour
• 1 tea spoon of east
• 1 tea spoon of vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 125gr butter (without salt)
• 1 pinch of salt
• add in chocolate chip, dry fruits or raisens

Just whisk the sugar with the eggs until bubbly, then add the vanilla (if liquid extract).
Then add half of the flour and dissolve it in the mix.
Then add the rest of the flour, the east and the vanilla (if powder extract).
Make sure the east is spread on the flour to avoid that it is concentrated in one cookie or so.
Mix them and then add the butter, make sure it is soft but not hot, you want to avoid boiling the mix and you want it to aggregate the dough.

Be ready for a different type of tasty cookies you can't get sick of but don't get you that addicted. These are good for children, because they are not that unhealthy (not so much sugar and butter) and the butter is not in excess avoiding that it fries in the oven. The smell of cookies will fill your kitchen and hopefully your house with the sense of homy mommy love.

I was pregnant last year and was really anxious about not knowing what to do with the baby once he would come to be. I read books and talked to people, but as a working mother doing my best I still didn't fell prepared or read nearly enough. Don't know if you ever get to. I realized once that I didn't know how to make chocolate chip cookies. I was always a fan of cookies, but at home we would bake mostly ginger cookies and that smelled like Christmas to me, not childhood. I know it makes no sense, but I started trying recipes and baking and testing and proofing, and alongside this huge belly I got the feeling that I would learn what needs to be learned and I would make my house smell like  mommy homy made chocolate chip childhood and with that I felt like I could make a home. It is not supposed to make sense, because fears don't either. Sometimes you just have to find the simple thing that gives you comfort and for me it was the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven and growing water on your mouth. I hope these give you the same feeling or that you find it somewhere else as long as you find your smell of home you will find home.

My diet is officially done. Almost reached my goal of 60kg by eating anything that I want as long as it doesn't have sugar. The last pesky kg didn't want to go, and I was becoming restless and bitchy so I decided to start gorging myself with chocolates early, before I had a chance of losing more than weight. Friendship is made of patience and my husband is a damn saint but I wouldn't want to put him through torture for god only knows how long. So I'm back on sweets, with moderation hoping to stay more or less fit. Who knows, writing about it might dampen my apatite... ya, right.