Winter Cleaning and Toby's 3rd Birthday Part 1, Raspberry Pistachio Mousse Cake

I have been very busy with cakes ever since I got back from my Asia trip. I might not have posted enough to show that but I have tons of backlogs to post.

July to October will always be my busy month every year though. It is when most of my family here have their birthdays on. It was my little nephew's birthday a few weeks ago and the thing with my nieces' and nephews' birthdays, they always get celebrated twice, one with the Sunday School friends, and the other one with the family and adult friends, making my baking schedule twice as busier.

Tobias is a very active little boy. He talks non stop (most of the time, it is very innocent), runs everywhere, and would always be cheerful all the time. One thing he loves is food. Oh he loves food so much that he would eat so many different things in one sitting and will get confused over it and he would ask himself why is he eating so many things. He will say "Yes!" before I finish my sentence "do you want...?". He is probably my biggest fan, he cheers up and yell "yay!" whenever I ask him if he wants a cake or ice cream. He immediately asks what I am making when I am behind the kitchen counter with the mixer on and asks when can he have it. He has his preference over cake too now due to the many desserts I've been feeding him.

I mentioned before that I always save my leftovers, be it any kind of mousse, cheesecake, chocolate glaze, base cakes, macarons, etc. I opened my freezer the other day and I didn't realize how much they have built up. I've been starting to freeze the summer berries for the winter stash and I definitely need all the space I could get in the freezer.

Since we had planned his birthday to be celebrated twice, I made the first cake rather simple, since he had made a request for his big celebration cake, which is quite time-consuming (the post is coming soon). I decided to make use of the many leftovers in the freezer to save time, also part of the Winter Cleaning effort. When I asked him what cake he wanted, he said strawberry, but then changed to raspberry. He asked everyday after if his cake is done, he loves cake that much.

I decided to make raspberry and pistachio mousse cake, making use of the pistachio mousse and pistachio joconde I had in the freezer. I made raspberry confiture as well as the raspberry mousse, it was simple and very light.

One thing I have to confess, I suck at making kids cake. This cake screams anything but kid friendly. Yup, I just don't have the imagination it needs to make it fun! I decorated it as if I were making a cake for adults, but it didn't stop everyone from devouring it though. I am very pleased with how it came out, tastewise and appearance-wise actually, despite being teased a lot that the cake looked very mature :)

I am still doing more and more Winter Cleaning cakes and there will be more posts about it.

Raspberry and Pistachio Mousse Cake

Pistachio Joconde -- refer to this recipe

Raspberry Confiture or Raspberry Jam-- refer to this recipe
Kirsch Soaking Syrup -- refer to this recipe (or use framboise-eau-de-vie)

Raspberry Mousse
200g heavy cream (add a little sugar if it's not sweet enough)
200g raspberry puree (strain the seeds out)
80g Italian meringue (refer to  this recipe)
15g eau-de-vie de framboise
2 tsp. gelatin powder (bloomed and dissolved in a little bit of water)

• Heat the raspberry puree until simmering, take it off the heat
• Add the melted gelatin, stir well
• Let cool in an ice bath until it is no longer warm
• Whip the heavy cream until soft peak
• Add the liqueur to the raspberry puree
• Fold in the italian meringue
• Lastly, fold in the whipped cream 

Decoration (optional)
Powdered raspberry powder