Blueberry Mousse Cake

Here is my family's favorite cake. This step-by-step recipe will create tender, delicious mousse cake. I'm sure you will love it too.

Blog's Category: Dessert, Holidays, My Staple Food

- Comparing to other cakes, this recipe won't take too long to make. Just a little bit of an effort, absolutely worthy.
- It's a perfect after-meal dessert, it won't make you feel heavy after all those holiday meals.
- Great make-ahead cake as it will keep nicely in your fridge for a few days.

- It has crunchy, thin bottom, flavorful and nutty, easy to make.
- Airy, tender mousse layer, not too sweet, with a prominent blueberry taste is awesome.
- Bright, sweet-&-sour, thin, fruity, gelatinous top layer
- Sugar coated blueberries scattered on top - nice, artsy touch for your cake.
- Get your ingredients from a freezer or fridge 30 minutes before you start.
- You can make the crust in advance. Wrap it in a paper. It can be kept at room temperature for a few days.

Blueberry Mousse Cake

For 10" cake:

Crust:

• 4 graham crackers (long ones, about 2"x7" each)
• 1 cup whole raw almonds, coarsely ground in a processor 
• 2/3 cup of melted butter (1 stick of butter)
• 1/4 c sugar

Mousse:

• 1 (8oz) container of whipped cream cheese
• 3/4 of 14-oz can of sweetened condensed milk
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tub of store-bought whipped cream (Miracle Whip), half-thawed
• 1/2 of 12-oz package of frozen blueberries, half-thawed (or fresh)
• 1 c milk (whole or 2%)
• 1 package (containing 4 small envelopes) of unflavored gelatin 

Top jello layer:

• 1 pack of strawberry, raspberry or cherry flavored gelatin (Jell-O)
• half of water needed from a pack's directions

Decoration:

• 1 cracker, crushed (I used chocolate graham crackers)
• 1/2 cup of fresh blueberries
• 1 tsp of lemon juice
• 1/4 cup sugar

Equipment:

• 10-11" spring cake form. I prefer using non-stick forms. Avoid using tin forms because your mousse can acquire metallic taste after sitting overnight in a fridge in this form. If you don't have other form, but only tin one, I would suggest to cut out long piece of parchment paper to lay on a sides of form before pouring mousse there. 
• parchment paper (or aluminum foil), sprayed with oil or buttered

- Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare spring form by placing parchment paper on a bottom of form. Grease it lightly with a melted butter. Mix crust ingredients well and pour the mix into the form. Tap it pretty hard with you fingers to create about 1/3" crust.  Bake for about 20-30 minutes. Remove from oven and let it cool completely without removing crust from a spring form.

- When crust is completely cooled, remove it from a form, peel off a parchment paper and then return crust back onto the parchment paper and back into a spring form, lock the form. These steps will make it easier to transfer cake to a serving plate later on. 

- Before starting on mousse, make sure your crust is ready and cooled completely. Spring form with crust should be ready for mousse to be poured as soon as it's done.

-  To start making mousse, dissolve gelatin - in a medium bowl, heat milk in a microwave until hot, for 1-2 minutes. Whisk in whole package (4 envelops) of unflavored gelatin into hot milk and set aside, occasionally stirring to make sure gelatin dissolves completely. 

- Continue making mousse. In a large bowl, using electric mixer, mix cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk and sugar until light and fluffy, for about 1-2 minutes. In a processor, process blueberries briefly just until they break. Add whipped cream and blueberries to a cream cheese mix and turn mixer on for 2-3 minutes. 

- From this moment act quickly (no worry, everyone can do this :)). Add milk with gelatin to mousse mixture, mix with electric mixer briefly just until it's incorporated evenly. Immediately pour mousse into a form with a crust. Quickly spread mousse evenly, try to make surface as even as possible, make sure there are no gaps around the edges.  Set aside.

- To make jello layer, follow instructions on a box of your Jell-o, only use half of all the amount of water needed. Our jello layer has to be more dense than regular Jello-o dessert. Pour jello on a top of mousse. Cover with a flat plate or plastic wrap and place in a fridge for a few hours or overnight.

- To make sugared blueberries for garnishing, transfer them into the bowl, sprinkle with lemon juice and shake well to coat them into lemon juice. Then transfer them onto a clean shallow baking pan and sprinkle generous amount of  sugar on top. Shake to coat blueberries nicely with a  sugar and leave them for at least one hour to dry. 

- To plate a cake, first, run thin-bladed knife all around the edges to separate mousse a little bit from a form. Now unlock the form and, turning sides left-right-left to break it free, slide form sides up. To transfer cake on a serving plate, carefully slide cake with paper onto flat board and then transfer cake from a paper onto serving plate. You can also use a special tool if you have it - it is a large and wide flat spatula for cakes. But often I like to use my own hands for better control ;)

- Use your imagination to garnish cake with crushed crackers and sugared blueberries. Note that if you are going to cover cake with blueberries and then cover cake with a plastic wrap to pop in a fridge, sugar will eventually melt. So, if you want frosted, not shiny,  blueberries, garnish cake with blueberries right before serving.

- Enjoy!



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In Pictures

First, prepare your spring form, inserting parchment paper on a bottom like this. Parchment paper should prevent from sticking dough to a paper, but just in case oil the bottom with a melted/soft butter or cooking spray. Leave edges sticking on a sides - later, it will make handling of your cake easier.

Mix crust ingredients before adding melted butter.

Use your palms to press mix into cake form. For me, spoon made good job too. If you noticed, I didn't place parchment paper on a bottom this time.. regretted this later :)

If your blueberries are completely frozen, mousse will be light in color with a whole berries throughout. If you are after purple-blue color for your mousse, make sure your blueberries are at least half-thawed.

this time I was making two cakes. Here are crust right from an oven. I wanted cool it down fast, so placed them outside. You can also make crust day before.

It's important to start making mousse when your crust is cooled completely and staying near ready to take a mousse onto itself :) On a picture, I'm adding gelatin powder to hot milk, then stirring it nicely with a whisk.

Cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk.

Looking from underneath, I noticed gelatin specs on a bottom, in a milk, so it took me a couple of stirs and 30-sec microwave time to get it dissolved completely.

I forgot to add sugar to cream cheese, so was adding it while mixing.

Whipped cream, then blueberries go to a mixture. Well, it is your choice to use store-bought whipped cream or whip cream by yourself. I did both ways and frankly, didn't notice a difference.

Using fresh blueberries will give you couple extra minutes before your mousse will set, because cold frozen blueberries will do exactly the opposite :)

I've got light-purple color, as my blueberries were somewhat frozen...

Adding gelatin with milk (it's frothy) into mousse mix.

Act fast as mousse becomes firm very quickly from now on.

Mousse is in forms.

Making jello top. My instructions called for 1 cup of hot and then 1 cup of cold water, which means I needed to use half-cup of hot water to dissolve jello powder, stir until sugar dissolves completely, and then added half-cup of cold water.

I used strawberry jello. Bright red, very bright.

Leave it without disturbing on a counter for about 20-30 minutes until it firms. Then cover with something flat (I used plastic cutting board) and place in a fridge.

Next day. Use thin knife to slide it along the sides.

Crushing crackers for garnishing..