One of the fondest memories I have of my father is sitting around the dinner table listening to Bill Cosby. My father had always been a very caring man, and while he may not have always told you how he felt, you could always tell from his expressions just how much he loved you.
He had been to hell and back in World War 2 and then again in Korea, so much so that he never spoke of it, and we knew better than to ask. Of course at that age I had no idea what exactly had happened to cause that much pain, I just knew there were movies we couldn’t watch and things we didn’t say. But to be able to look back on those times, and to remember my father and how he laughed as we listened to Bill Cosby was how I will always remember him, without a care in the world, with his family by his side.
The old man had his favorite routines but nothing ever struck home more than “Chocolate Cake for Breakfast” and it wasn’t until my senior year in high school when I had friends staying over, that I found out Chocolate Cake wasn’t a breakfast really a breakfast food after all. Well at our house it was, and I’m happy to say that Lisa doesn’t seem to mind my addition to our breakfast table one little bit!
We keep telling ourselves its a European thing!
With Valentine’s Day almost here, I decided to make a special cake. I love my chocolate olive oil cake, but it’s been seen too many times here, so I opted for a regular chocolate cake. But I wasn’t in the mood for a total chocolate attack, so I decided that a strawberry mousse filling would be just the right touch, with a mascarpone chocolate butter cream to finish it off! It was as good it as it looked, and the strawberry mousse was light and flavorful and offered enough of a distraction from the chocolate to keep everything balanced.
- 2⅔ cup all purpose flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 8 oz unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa
- 1 cup Greek yogurt
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1½ teaspoon vanilla
- 2 large eggs
- 1 Cup Heavy Cream
- 2 cups sliced cleaned strawberries
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 envelope gelatin
- 4 ounces semi sweet chocolate chopped
- 16 ounces Mascarpone
- 4 cups 500 g confectioner’s sugar
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup mini chocolate chips to garnish top of cake
- Prepare 4 cake pans using parchment circles in the bottom of each pan and lightly coating the sides and paper with butter
- Preheat oven to 350
- Blend flour, salt, baking soda, cocoa and sugar together, set aside
- Make sure all of your wet ingredients are at room temperature.
- In the bowl of your mixer whip softened butter and yogurt together .
- Add the eggs one at a time fully incorporating before adding another, and remember to scrape down your bowl in between each addition.
- Add vanilla and mix until blended
- Add the dry ingredients and mix just enough to blend them into the wet ingredients.
- Divide between 4 cake pans,spreading batter evenly using an offset spatula
- Bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean
- Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes then remove from pan to continue cooling.
- Sprinkle gelatin over ¼ cup water in a small bowl and let stand 5 minutes.
- In a food processor, puree 2 cups sliced strawberries and ½ cup granulated sugar until smooth.
- Transfer strawberry mixture to a small saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove from heat, and add gelatin to strawberry mixture, stirring constantly until gelatin dissolves.
- Cover and chill until slightly thickened about 30 minutes, stir the mixture every 10 minutes
- Whip cream at low speed until foamy; gradually increase speed to medium-high, and beat until soft peaks form.
- Fold whipped cream into strawberry mixture until well blended. Cover and chill 30 minutes or just until mixture has thickened enough to be used as filling
- Spread about 1 cup Strawberry Mousse between each cake layer, cover and chill 3 hours or until mousse is set.
- In a double boiler melt chocolate, set aside.
- Add Mascarpone to a large bowl and beat with confectioner’s sugar in three additions until smooth.
- Add vanilla and gradually add the melted chocolate.
- Whip frosting until light and fluffy and frost cake immediately, before chocolate can set.
- Sprinkle mini chocolate chips on top of cake.
- Refrigerate cake until serving, but allow it to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.
Have a Happy Valentines Day and no matter what you serve your Valentine, remember the important part of the day will be the time you spend together with that special someone that makes your life complete!
That Bill Cosby skit is one of my favorites! And this cake??? I’d take it around my breakfast table, my lunch table, my dinner table, or for a snack.
Thanks Jen! It’s nice to know that others remember that skit, other than Noah, it was always my favorite
Hi Chef D,
Noticed the mentioning of the Korean war. Do you know about the Korean War Veterans Association?
hi Ansie
When my father was alive, he belonged to many of the organizations supporting veterans, I’m sure he was part of that group. He did spend most of his time working with the VFW though
thanks for thinking of me
Dennis
I grew up listening to that same comedy routine… and the chocolate cake for breakfast is one of the best. Happy Valentine’s Day, my friend!
Thank you Brian! I hope the snow doesn’t put a damper on your Valentines Day
Chocolate cake for breakfast sounds divine.
A cake to fall in love with.
This Thursday is when I plan to have this cake, I know it will be a hit. Thank you for posting this recipe.
Gorgeous cake!
This is such a beautiful cake!
Wow! Beautiful cake and ingenious to add the strawberry! Think I may need to adapt your Dad’s habit of cake for breakfast in my house!
Chef, this is truly a lovely cake inspired by loving memories of a man and his cake for breakfast legacy. The story is a fine example of how we carry on and preserve the essence of those who are dear, delivered slice, by glorious slice. Spot on post and recipe my friend. Happy Valentine’s to you & yours!
Aww your dad sounds wonderful <3 This cake looks amazingly delicious and I know my boyfriend would looove it (he loves strawberry+chocolate)!
I love that Bill Cosby sketch, too.
Although I’m not in the mood for sweets in the morning (the only time of the day when you’ll hear me say a thing like that!), Brian totally is. And we both like having a little fruit cream to lighten up the total chocolate attack of a chocolate cake. So, he would eat half of this for breakfast and I will polish off the rest after dinner. I don’t know what you and Lisa are going to eat. 
Looks divine !
Chocolate cake for breakfast is the ultimate in romance!! Happy Valentine’s!
Whenever there was cake in our house it was eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner. Everyone of course denied that they touched it at breakfast but we all knew we had. I mean really, is it any different than having a cinnamon roll? There is always one way to rationalize it-or not! And this looks great!
this cake is gorgeous – and I can’t help but laugh thinking about Bill Cosby, a staple growing up in our house too – and the line he did about dad feeding the kids breakfast, and so he gave them chocolate cake for breakfast, and all the kids were singing “dad is great, gives us the chocolate cake” until mom wakes up, coming down the stairs, wild eyes with fire coming out ready to burn a hole in his stomach – hahahaha – i can still hear his voice telling it – so funny. my sister and i STILL sing that song – good times.
Your Dad sounds so wonderful…you must miss him. Isn’t it amazing how seemingly incongruent things are the very ones that we associate our near and dear ones by even long after they are gone? A world war hero and chocolate cake…..so touching. Thank you for sharing this little tit bit with us.That is such a delicious looking cake!! Mascarpone frosting too! I can have that for breafast any day!
Oh my goodness, it is so hard to look away from this chocolate cake. And what a great story about your dad. It made me feel nostalgic for my own parents. Thanks for sharing this cake, Chef Dennis. Bookmarked it, will bake it soon.
what a beautiful cake! love the strawberry touch, perfect for valentine’s. thanks for sharing about your dad…we aren’t a military family, but i’ve wondered, watching movies and seeing so much casual violence how that might affect those who’ve actually witnessed those things in real life. makes you less likely to cheer when all the faceless ‘bad guys’ get gunned down…
Cake for breakfast sounds just perfect to me! Love the chocolate mascarpone frosting!
I well remember the Bill Cosby skit about cake for breakfast. Still makes me laugh. The cake is nothing to laugh at, though. A marvelous new creation.
Truly a heartwarming story, Dennis. Wonderful cake, too! Happy Valentine’s Day to you & your wife.
This cake looks absolutely divine! Love the strawberry mousse to offset the chocolate and that mascarpone frosting… That sounds amazing! Lovely cake.
Looks like a jummy cake but is it possible to replace the gelatine with something sutable for vegetarians?
hi Elena
probably the easiest substitution would be Agar-Agar, or Kosher Gelatin, most of them are Vegan.
Here are recommendations I found for Agar-Agar:
This flavorless gelling agent, derived from cooked and pressed seaweed, is available flaked, powdered, or in bars. For best results, grind the agar-agar in a coffee grinder or food processor and then cook it, stirring it regularly until it dissolves. When used in a recipe, agar-agar sets in about an hour and doesn’t require refrigeration to gel. For a firmer gel, add more agar-agar, and for a softer gel, add more liquid. And don’t worry if you don’t get it right the first time—you can fix a faux pas simply by reheating the gel. Here’s a general guide on how to use agar in recipes:
• Substitute powdered agar-agar for gelatin using equal amounts.
• 1 Tbsp. of agar-agar flakes is equal to 1 tsp. of agar-agar powder.
• Set 2 cups of liquid using 2 tsp. of agar-agar powder, 2 Tbsp. of agar-agar flakes, or one bar.
• Keep in mind that highly acidic ingredients, such as lemons, strawberries, oranges, and other citrus fruits, may require more agar-agar than the recipe calls for. Also, enzymes in fresh mangoes, papaya, and pineapple break down the gelling ability of the agar-agar so that it will not set. Cooking these fruits before adding them to a recipe, however, neutralizes the enzymes so that the agar-agar can set.
thanks alot! will try it out!
Hello! This cake looks wonderful!
But I have a question, what size cake pan did you use or which should I use?
hi Victoria
I used 9″ rounds for my cake. Let me know how it turns out
Dennis
Hi!
I had trouble with the cake because adding the liquid ingredients into the dry, I could not beat well.
And when I baked the cake got! : (
I have another question, is there to put the cake in the refrigerator once baked?
I’ll have to try again!
hi Victoria
If you had a problem blending everything together, you may want to try starting with the wet ingredients first and blending them all together first then adding in the dry. Also make sure all the wet ingredients are at room temperature, the butter should be soft but not mushy, but let the eggs and yogurt warm up longer so they are at room temp. That will help keep everything together. One of the problems is when cold products hit softened butter it starts to firm it back up.
I wouldn’t put the cake into the referigerator after baking unless you were going to wait to finish it. If you don’t have time to make the cake, you can also freeze the layers until you have time. Once completed with the mousse you’ll have to keep it refrigerated.
Dennis