Triple Sec Chocolate Mousse Pie and Mocha Ganache Hot Water Chocolate Cake

waxjism has really gotten into baking cakes recently, and she was totally on a roll on her vacation, so after the Apple Tosca Pie was finished, she made a chocolate mousse pie (to use up a package of not-very-good chocolate cookies), which was stunning, and then she made a super-moist mocha cake with some kind of ganache frosting that looks very very sad because of too much cream in the frosting. It still is VERY good, but not as good as chocolate mousse. (If you think chocolate cakes are too fluffy and light and not moist enough, or that when they are moist they're too soft/unset/undercooked, it's probably this last type of cake that you want. She said it's something to do with the chemistry of using boiling water that makes this cake extremely firm but moist, after a cake batter that's very thin and liquid. So definitely look up a recipe for a "boiled water chocolate cake" or a "hot water chocolate cake" if that sounds interesting.)

But enough about that cake. I want to talk about chocolate mousse.

It has to be said, first off, that a chocolate mousse cake is literally just chocolate mousse topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate shavings, with a layer of compacted chocolate cookie crumbs held together with melted butter. Chocolate cookie crumbs are not a BAD garnish for chocolate mousse, but they don't really add anything. They also aren't really crunchy enough to provide a strong texture contrast, if that's what you were after (I know people do do that, even though I don't personally feel like my experience of mousse would be illuminated by crunchiness). Chocolate mousse pie is not in any way worse than the same chocolate mousse in a bowl, it's just also not really better. And I guess arguably less convenient, since you have to cut it up instead of parceling it into servings as soon as you make it. So on the whole, it's remarkably impressive and also delicious in comparison with many other pies and cakes, but if you're comparing it to just making chocolate mousse, it's probably not worth it unless you have a box of chocolate cookies to use up.

But I DO want to put in a strong word for orange liqueur in chocolate mousse! The second to last time Wax made chocolate mousse, she used a bar of not-that-great raspberry-flavored dark chocolate from Lidl that wasn't tasty enough to eat as a chocolate bar, but it added a delicious hint of raspberry. However, the strength of the effect is much higher when using liquer instead. She splashed in some triple sec (because we don't have any Grand Marnier), but we're gonna try raspberry liquer next time. Coffee liqueur is another good idea, so we might try that too (although we recently used up a bottle of coffee liqueur and it isn't really a favorite). I suppose amaretto and Irish cream, which are my other favorite chocolate truffles flavorings, would also make great chocolate mousse.