Dang it, late again!

My French Fridays with Dorie posts are rapidly devolving into "French some-days or other whenever I can get around to posting and Dorie probably won't be waiting around for me anyway" posts.  I will point out that I actually made this on Monday/Tuesday of last week.  Was it good?  Double-chocolate mousse cake did not make it past Tuesday at my house.  Yummmmmmm.

The "cake" is actually chocolate mousse, cooked in a springform pan in two stages.  First, the chocolate is melted in a double boiler, and then the coffee, sugar and egg yolks are added.  Here is the dense chocolate mixture after the last egg yolk is added:

Then the egg whites are whipped and folded in.  No pictures, sorry.

At this point you have dee-lish-us mousse, and actually I would have been fine stopping here.  (And eating it all straight out of the pan, thankyouverymuch.) But now you put about 1/3 into a springform ring placed on a cookie sheet:

This bakes into a soft "crust" that forms the basis for the next step.  You can either place the remainder of the mousse into the crust, unmold and enjoy; or place the remainder into the crust, bake, and enjoy; or place the remainder into the crust, bake, chill again, slice and enjoy.  I did the full monty for two reasons: first, it's Dorie's favorite; and second, I'd know if it would be worth the extra steps and time the next time I make this, because there WILL be a next time. 

If you look very closely you can see that there is a bottom "crust" that is more dense than the top part.  I served this with a little dollop of whipped cream.  It is dense and chocolatey, really delicious.  Four thumbs up from the kiddos plus big thumbs up from Bill.  One son said it tasted like a brownie, and he's kind of right.  But this is perfectly smooth, not grainy or gooey at all.  Next time I think I'll stop with the uncooked filling, well-chilled.  It is fluffy and light and so chocolatey.  (Yes, I know about eating raw eggs. I'll eat it all myself, if necessary.) This week was definitely a winner!