Chocolate Red Wine Mousse Cake

Husband and I have never been much into Valentine's day or for that matter any other Hallmark holidays. We however like chocolate cakes and for that reason alone I decided to make a big deal of  Valentine's day this year and celebrate it with this heavenly Chocolate Red Wine Mousse Cake...

The recipe is an adaptation of Michel Rostang's Double-Chocolate Mousse Cake from Dorie Greenspan's book Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. I mostly followed her recipe, just made a tiny adjustment... replaced the brewed coffee with an equal measure of red wine... and created "one of the most elegant desserts ever"... so said the husband. We relished and enjoyed the dessert over the next 3 days, each time feeling decadent and wonderful....   

This is a flourless cake and is baked in two sessions. You first make the batter, bake part of it for the crust, chill the crust, then pour the remaining batter over the baked crust and bake the whole cake again. And then you chill it all over before serving. Yes. The process involved it is somewhat lengthy and tedious. However once you have baked, chilled and tasted the goey chocolately deliciousness, and seen the delight on your partners face,  you will forget about all the tiny details and will want to make the cake again for your special someone...  

Qubani ka Mitha(Stewed Apricot Dessert) : South Vs North May Challenge

This month Roha from Hydrabadi Cuisine challenged the North Team to make Qubani ka Meetha. Till then I had never heard of this dessert. so out of curiosity i went to the the local grocery store the very next day to got the required ingredients. though i did not get the exact form of dried apricot , i found a close cousin, Dried Turkish Apricots  and decided to make the dessert with it. following Roha's recipe I soaked the dried apricots overnight and prepared the dessert the very next day. we were so delighted by how the dessert looked and tasted that without waiting to take the photographs in daylight we licked it off our plates that very night.  and then i had to prepare a second batch to feed the blog...  

In the recipe Roha had mentioned that the stewed apricots can be topped with malai,  whipped cream or custard. just to keep things fruity I decided to make a apricot mousse instead and we loved the combination of the two.