Chocolate Mousse Almond Tart

Norsk versjon av denne bloggsiden finnes her.

The last few weeks I have been trying out the new Facebook hit vegan meringue, and made nice almond meringue cookies. Now it is time to make vegan almond tart with chocolate mousse. The almond tart is in reality almond meringue cookies baked in a mould, while the chocolate mousse is inspired by several posts about chocolate mousse based on vegan meringue on Facebook page “Vegan meringue – hits and misses“. Peanuts as topping on the cake was selected after input from the house’s youngster. Peanuts and chocolate combined is never wrong. The recipe is enough for one large or two small almond tarts for a total of 10-12 people. You will need brine from a little more than a 400 g box of chickpeas.

120 g brine from canned chickpeas (= Aquafaba)
1/16 teaspoon (= a pinch) citric acid
200 g sugar
200 g ground almonds

Preheat oven at 120 gC. Dress the inside of two spring forms without bottom / cake rings, 18 cm in diameter (or a cake ring of about 26 cm) with strips of waxed baking paper (fold the bottom edge of the paper to get a straight ending) and set the ring (s) on a baking tray covered with parchment paper (or draw up two similarly sized circles (18 cm diameter) directly on the parchment paper). Grind the almonds in almond grinder or blender. Have the chick pea brine in a bowl of steel or glass, along with the citric acid, and whisk up a rigid foam with a handheld mixer. (Citric acid is not strictly necessary, but renders the foam stiffer and more stable. You can optionally use 1/2 tsp of 7% vinegar instead). Sprinkle in the sugar little by little and continue whisking until you have a completely stiff and thick meringue mass. Stir gently into the foam the ground almonds. Share the dough into two parts and spread the dough in the form (s) (or within the circle (s), the dough is going to spread out somewhat in the absence of the mould, so do not distribute the dough to the edge of the circle). Bake bottoms at 120 gC for 60 minutes. Cool completely, before placing the tart on a cake tray. Now prepare the mousse.

A word of caution or information: Depending on your oven and your mould, the almond tart may be more or less airy. In contrast to eggwhite meringue, the chickpea meringue does not keep the air well upon heating. It is only the almonds themselves that together with the sugar will firm up to contain the air during baking. If you bake at to high temperature, the tart will collapse early during baking (the tart will still look and taste fine when covered with chocolate mousse). If you bake at lower temperature, more air will remain in the tart, but be prepared that top of the tart may be detached from the rest of the cake. This does not really affect the final result.

200 g chocolate 70% (without milk)
120 g Aquafaba (kikertelake)
1/16 teaspoon (= a pinch) citric acid
120 g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla powder

salty, roasted peanuts

Break the chocolate into pieces, put them in a glass or steel bowl and melt the chocolate over a boiling water bath. In the mean time whisk up a new batch of meringue. Start by whisking together the brine and the citric acid until it becomes a fairly firm foam. Whisk in the sugar little by little. Once you’ve got a completely stiff meringue, mix in the vanilla powder, then stop whisking. From now on only use the spatula. Scrape out the melted chocolate over the meringue and use the spatula to fold the chocolate into the meringue. Stir as little as possible, to lose the least amount of air. When the chocolate and meringue are mixed together (but there may well be some white stripes still) spread the mousse on tart base (s). Sprinkle over the peanuts. If you now have two tartes, you can layer on on top of the other. Or you can serve them side by side.

This cake is gluten free,  egg free and (if you use milk free dark chocolate) dairy free and thus vegan.

Blogpost by Anne Spurkland, published in Norwegian on 8 April 2015