White Chocolate Strawberry Mousse Cake

I made this White Chocolate Strawberry Mousse Cake for my mum's birthday recently :) 

You’ll need approx 4 punnets strawberries for this recipe

Ingredients

1 x Chiffon cake base, cut into 2 even layers

Click here for the Chiffon Cake Base recipe

A) 400g strawberry
1 tbsp lemon juice
50g caster sugar

1 tsp strawberry essence
Extra strawberry sliced and cubed (as much as you like- I used approx 100g)
Whole strawberry for garnish (optional)

B) 300ml thickened cream
3 tbsp icing sugar

C) 100g white chocolate
50ml thickened cream

D) 15g gelatine (approx. 1 tbsp)
50ml hot water

E) 100ml thickened cream

1 tbsp icing sugar, extra

Method

1. Clean and hull the strawberries. Add in 50g sugar and let it sit for awhile. Puree them in a blender and put it through the strainer. You should get about 400ml strawberry puree. Stir in 1 tbsp of lemon juice. Reserve 2 tbsp of this puree for the swirl effect.
2. Whip 300ml thickened cream with 3 tbsp icing sugar till mousse state.
3. Melt 100g white chocolate then add into 50ml thickened cream.
4. Dissolve gelatine in hot water, let stand for 5 minutes then stir this into the strawberry puree. 
5. Add melted white chocolate mixture into the strawberry puree.
6. Fold the whipped cream into the strawberry chocolate mixture.
7. Line the cake pan with a slice of the cake base; top it with half the mousse. Add in the strawberry pieces. Press the fruits down gently if needed. Top it with some mousse just enough to cover the strawberry pieces.
8. Top it with another layer of cake and pour the rest of the mousse on it.
9. Spoon teaspoonfuls of the reserved puree onto the surface of the mousse on desired positions and swirl it with a toothpick to create the swirls.
10. Refrigerate for at least 3 - 4 hours.   
11. Use an electric beater to beat cream and icing sugar in a medium bowl until firm peaks form. 
12. Place the cream in a piping bag fitted with a 1cm fluted nozzle and pipe rosettes around the edge of the cake. Arrange some strawberries around the cake between the cream rosettes. Cut the cake into wedges to serve. 

Notes & Tips

To create the swirl effect on top of the cake, drop one teaspoon of strawberry puree on the cake surface and swirl the puree with a toothpick. I put 1 teaspoon on the middle of the cake and the rest at clock position of 12, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10.

*** I lined the inner circumference of my spring form cake pan with plastic cake tape and trimmed my cake to be smaller than the spring form pan. This way the mousse will cover the whole cake and you don’t need to cream the cake but just pipe some rosettes or whatever with some cream and do the rest of the décor on the cake. If you don't have any cake tape, use clear cellophane instead. Moisten one side of the cellophane with some water to help it adhere to the sides of the pan.