Chocolate with Francois

This month's challenge was hosted by  Moogie of Moogie and Pap and the direction from Moogie was to make Francois Payard's  Chocolate Mousse (Presented in a different and creative way ) .  I thought of a zillion different ways to present the Mousse but seriously it's all been done before, tarts,tortes,frozen,baked in a cake,sandwiched between cookies and I'm sure somewhere along the line someone even tried to fry it !  So I just decided to go with the flow and do something I love and enjoy.  While I was picking up groceries this week I kept seeing all the fixings for strawberry shortcake and I thought what about raspberry shortcake with chocolate mousse instead of whipped cream and of course raspberries instead of strawberries.  So ta da I give you my take on Chocolate Mousse ,it will be the first time I have ever had it this way-Raspberry Shortcake with Chocolate Mousse ! 

I used my new miniature angel food cake pans and made tiny little angel food cakes.  Yes I'm one of those gadget girls when it comes to baking , aren't we all ?  I mean someday someone will be beating down my door for those little angel food cakes !  I used the recipe that came with the pan and they turned out OK,a little too spongy for my liking but not bad.  I made up some raspberry syrup from fresh raspberries and put that in the bottom of the serving bowl along with a layer of fresh raspberries.  I hollowed out an even larger opening in the center of the cake to make room for the chocolate mousse and filled it to the brim !  I drizzled more raspberry syrup over the whole thing and took chocolate ganache that I had left over from some cream puffs and drizzled that over the entire cake and topped it with a sweet little raspberry !  Yummy, way too rich and something I will only have occasionally-like maybe every Friday !  This challenge reminded me how much I love mousse-it's so light and sweet-it matches the personality of the little angel cakes !  So enjoy my sweet little angels !