Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Cake
November 5, 2010
The excited “look they have Reese’s” exclamations last week of both trick-or-treaters and their parents reminded me just how popular the combination of peanut butter and chocolate really are among people of all ages. It is certainly a favorite combination around here. Peanut butter brownies are certainly not safe in our house, especially if marshmallows are also involved.
Knowing how much we love peanut butter, I had been wanting to try making a peanut butter mousse with chocolate for a long time. The difficulty, however, was that every peanut butter mousse recipe called for whipped cream for lightness. Not wanting to use artificial parve creams there wasn’t really a good kosher parve substitute for whipped cream, so the peanut butter mousse went unmade for several years.
However, that problem has now been solved. The wonderful people at Mimiccreme have developed an all natural whippable product called Healthy Top that has the consistency of whipped cream. They were nice enough to send me samples over the summer, but because of everything going on in my life I was just too busy to try it. Last week I finally got around to testing it out, and naturally the first thing I made was peanut butter mousse. And wow am I glad that I did. The Healthy Top worked perfectly in this dessert, and the nuttiness of the peanut butter masked the nutty flavor of the mimiccreme completely. I wasn’t so happy with the flavor of the Healthy Top in the other applications I tried (like as vanilla whipped cream) but it clearly is a product with huge potential. I will continue to experiment with it and see where it works best, and will be sure to keep a box on hand at all times for whipping up this peanut butter mousse.
This peanut butter mousse cake is outstanding. Several people told me that they liked it even though the don’t like peanut butter desserts, which says a lot. The mousse is light and the peanut flavor is clearly present but not overwhelming. The chocolate ganache layer has the consistency of a thick fudge sauce and is the perfect foil for the light mousse. The one part that people didn’t love was the crust. It had good flavor but was too hard, which made it very difficult to cut neat pieces. Next time I make this I will just serve the mousse in parfait glasses with the ganache on top, which also makes the dessert gluten-free.
For an even simpler and extremely elegant version skip the crust and the ganache and serve the mousse in chocolate dessert cups topped with chocolate shavings.
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Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Cake
November 5, 2010
Ingredients & Instructions
Ingredients & Quantities
Crust
1 9-ounce package chocolate wafer cookies (or chocolate graham crackers) 1/2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted margarine, meltedFilling
1 18-ounce jar creamy peanut butter 2 8-ounce packages toffuti cream cheese, room temperature 2 cups powdered sugar 2 tablespoons vanilla extract 2 cups chilled mimiccreme healthy topTopping
1/2 cup soy milk minus one tablespoon 1/4 cup sugar 1 tablespoon margarine 6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cooking Instructions
For crust:
Preheat oven to 325°F. Blend cookies, sugar and cinnamon in processor to fine crumbs. Add melted butter and blend well using on/off turns. Press crumb mixture onto bottom and up sides of 10-inch-diameter springform pan. Bake until crust starts to puff and darkens slightly, about 15 minutes. Cool.
For filling:
Using electric mixer, beat peanut butter and cream cheese in large bowl to blend. Add powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons vanilla extract and beat until well blended. Using clean dry beaters, beat 2 cups mimiccreme healthy top in medium bowl until stiff peaks form; fold into peanut butter mixture in 4 additions. Spoon filling into prepared crust.
For topping:
Combine soymilk, 1/4 cup sugar and margarine in heavy medium saucepan. Stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture comes to simmer. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Whisk in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Cool topping 5 minutes. Spread topping evenly over filling. Refrigerate cake until cold, about 4 hours. (Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Cover cake and keep refrigerated.) Serve cake chilled.
Recipe Details
Recipe Times
Prep
N/A
Cook
N/A
Total
N/A
Recipe Yield
12-16 servings
Recipe Categories
Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Cake
November 5, 2010
Recipe Details
Recipe Yield
12-16 servings
Prep Time
N/A
Cook Time
N/A
Total Time
N/A
Ingredients & Quantities
Crust
1 9-ounce package chocolate wafer cookies (or chocolate graham crackers)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted margarine, melted
Filling
1 18-ounce jar creamy peanut butter
2 8-ounce packages toffuti cream cheese, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 cups chilled mimiccreme healthy top
Topping
1/2 cup soy milk minus one tablespoon
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon margarine
6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preparation & Cooking
Preparation
Cooking
For crust:
Preheat oven to 325°F. Blend cookies, sugar and cinnamon in processor to fine crumbs. Add melted butter and blend well using on/off turns. Press crumb mixture onto bottom and up sides of 10-inch-diameter springform pan. Bake until crust starts to puff and darkens slightly, about 15 minutes. Cool.
For filling:
Using electric mixer, beat peanut butter and cream cheese in large bowl to blend. Add powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons vanilla extract and beat until well blended. Using clean dry beaters, beat 2 cups mimiccreme healthy top in medium bowl until stiff peaks form; fold into peanut butter mixture in 4 additions. Spoon filling into prepared crust.
For topping:
Combine soymilk, 1/4 cup sugar and margarine in heavy medium saucepan. Stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture comes to simmer. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Whisk in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Cool topping 5 minutes. Spread topping evenly over filling. Refrigerate cake until cold, about 4 hours. (Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Cover cake and keep refrigerated.) Serve cake chilled.
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Anything with chocolate and peanut butter is a winner in my book! I love the use of tofu in the mousse….I was definitely expecting it to be filled with heavy cream.
Wow, another seriously good-looking dessert! What did you prepare this in – not a 10″springform pan > was it a ramekin? Simply divine.
My two favorite things together! How did you make the mini cakes? What were they baked in? The recipe just says a 10-inch springform.
Also – I much prefer Rich’s whip to mimiccreme – yes, chemicals, I know, but much more reliably cream-like.
I made the mini cakes using a mini cheesecake pan like this one . I baked the crust for a few minutes in the mini pans and then once they were cool filled them with the mousse and topped them with the ganache. I have no idea how many mini cakes the whole recipe would make, since I made most of the recipe into a 9-inch round cake and just used a bit of the filling to make the mini cakes. (I was serving the cake on shabbat and knew I would have a chance to take a picture of it, so I wanted something for a picture) I imagine a whole recipe would make several dozen.
In terms of the Rich’s whip I do agree that it can be used more reliably across the board as a cream replacement, but since I try to avoid chemicals in my baking I am excited that the mimiccreme Healthy Top works in recipes like this one. I agree that mimiccreme isn’t the perfect substitute for cream in all recipes, and I use all different things to get the feeling of cream in different contexts, but this was one recipe that I thought the mimiccreme worked great. I’m sure Rich’s would work in this recipe as well if you prefer to use it.
do you know if a mousse with mimicream can be frozen? I wanted to make pavlovas with a chocolate mimicream filling for a sheva brachot in 2 weeks and I wanted to make stuff in advance.
Thanks!
Rahel
I haven’t specifically tried freezing chocolate mousse made with mimiccream but this peanut butter mousse freezes well so I imagine it would work fine. I once made a chocolate ice cream with mimiccream that was so rich it had the consistency of mousse when it melted so if that worked a chocolate mouse should be good too. Let me know how it turns out!
Looks yummy! I’m curious; in one recipe a while ago, you used coconut milk for the ganache, which appealed to me because a) it’s something I can get easily here, and b) it’s actual FOOD, as opposed to manufactured whatevers that you can buy to make stuff pareve. However, I don’t remember seeing any recipes using coconut milk for a ganache or topping since then.
My question, then, is twofold:
1) is there a reason you avoid coconut milk, or do you just prefer the alternatives?
and
2) could I use coconut milk in this topping? I don’t love soy milk…
Thanks!
Hi Jennifer,
The reason I used soy milk in this ganache was simply because I had an open box of soy milk and didn’t want to open a whole can of coconut milk for the small amount I needed in this recipe. I do really like coconut milk in ganache, particularly for truffles and thick ganache layers such as in the s’more tart. Generally I use alternatives when I am making a small amount because I am not good at using up the rest of the can of coconut milk before it goes bad and I hate to waste it. I also had several months up until recently where I couldn’t get kosher coconut milk so I had to use other alternatives, but happily that is no longer the case. In this topping I would probably leave the margarine out if using coconut milk, because it has a higher fat content, and use a full half cup of the coconut milk. It will be a soft ganache, but since the cake is served cold you don’t want it too firm or it is hard to cut without squishing the mousse.
Wow, those look good and I am so excited about an alternative to Rich’s Whip. Thanks, Shoshana!
BTW, here is another idea for the pb mousse: if you have those dome shaped molds, you can put the mousse in them and put a round of thin sponge cake on top, freeze them, then flip them out and glaze them with ganache.
Wow, Shoshana, these look amazing! I love that you’ve made it your mission to create yummy pareve desserts… it’s a difficult task, yet you make it look deliciously simple. Kudos!
What a treat this looks like. I am wondering if you use Rich’s whipped topping that you beat to make whipped cream. There are heimish brands also.
Hi Chaya,
I used mimiccreme Healthy Top to make the whipped cream that is folded into the mousse. I prefer it to other non-dairy whipped toppings because it is all natural. I assume that Rich’s would work as well, but I do not use it in my kitchen so I have not tried it myself. This is one of my favorite mousse cakes, if you get a chance to make it I hope you enjoy it as well.
One more thing,
The mousse is great on its own, or served in a parfait glass with the ganache on top. However, I also have had great success making gluten-free chocolate cookie crusts (such as in this kind used in this cake) using this cookie recipe and substituting margarine for the butter so the whole cake can be made gluten-free as well
looks absolutely delish!
question – i’d like to make this in a graham cracker crust – the ones that they sell that are parve. would i need two crusts for this recipe?
The cake would be great in a graham cracker crust. I would use two since they are smaller than the springform. You might want to double the ganache recipe since you will have more surface area to cover with topping than if you had made one deeper cake in the springform pan.
Can i use rich’s whip instead of the mimcreme. I usually use that for whipped cream in parve desserts
I imagine it should work fine, but I never use rich whip so I can’t say for sure.