Mini Chocolate and Raspberry Mousse Cake for Your Valentine!

First of all, I want to wish you a Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Valentine's Day! I used to have a big family gathering every year on Chinese new year with my dad's side of the family, then we started to go house to house to my mom's side of family. It was a tradition that was never skipped, until the last few years before I moved here to the States. So, I don't get to celebrate it the big way like it used to be anymore, especially since now my parents are so far away in Indonesia. But I never fail to call them each year and wish them a happy new year and good health. Oh, how I miss them so badly :(.

On the other hand, I was never big on Valentine. I'm still happy whenever Valentine comes around because I got to see some cute and romantic decoration everywhere. I also love to check out what other people in the blogsphere world made to celebrate this love day. Most of them involved lots of chocolate, raspberries, strawberries, rose, and it's very interesting to see what they made to show their love to the significant other. I did have LOTS of ideas of Valentine's dessert, not that I celebrate it or anything but it's just interesting to participate in the season :), but of course ideas don't just come to reality just like that. I only had time to make this one mini cake. I'll save the other dessert ideas for next time :)

This cake wasn't one of my original ideas, in fact, this wasn't planned at all. I was going to Trader Joe's to pick up a mascarpone cheese for the previous cake and at that time, they were distributing a cake sample. It was their vanilla bean butter cake mix, topped with raspberry mascarpone (mascarpone mixed with raspberry jam), and guess what, vanilla bean, mascarpone, raspberry, my favorite!!! the cake was really simple to make but it reminds me once again how much I love mascarpone and raspberry together. So, after making the previous cake, I had a little mascarpone mousse leftover and I immediately remembered the previous cake sample I had. So, I took one chocolate sponge in the freezer and cut it up with a cake ring, layered it with thin layer of raspberry jam, put some fresh raspberry on the edges, mixed the leftover mascarpone mousse with raspberry jam and layered it on the cake. I also had some mascarpone cheesecake in the freezer already cut up to fit the inside of my mini cake ring, so I put it inside the raspberry mascarpone. Fortunately, I also had a little raspberry glaze left too in the freezer to put on top of the cake. Yes, I have A LOT of little goodies here and there in the freezer in case you're wondering :). I found gorgeous raspberries when I shopped for the previous cake too. It was expensive for a little box, but I had to buy it. It turned out to be organic raspberries and they were like little gems, bright red, plump, fresh, and I just have to take a pic.

I guess all these coincident (or more like all these leftovers) are meant for Valentine theme. It has chocolate, raspberries, red color, I just love the color of this . One thing I didn't have as leftover was the red rose petal. I thought it would look super pretty with it underneath the raspberries, don't you think? :D