Caramel Coffee Mousse Bowl... for my Baby Daddy

When June hit, all I can think of is the summer sun, backyard barbeques, and Father’s Day! Growing up, I was very close to my father, he was my rock, my standard of what a man should grow up to be. Well, that was until I met my husband. He is everything I didn’t know I wanted until I met him. I try not to toot my own horn when it comes to my husband because, well it’s just annoying. When ladies get together and complain about their husbands not doing housework or spending too much time on their hobbies, I can’t identify at all. He cooks, he cleans, he supports me in every endeavor, and all by his own personal choice and initiation. These tendencies in him only doubled when our son was born... Yeah, I'm pretty spoiled.

Another reason why I don’t flaunt my trophy of a husband is that he is so humble. From his perspective, everything he does is no big deal because it comes to him naturally. He doesn’t feel like it is a stretch for him to show his love for me, it is just how it should be. He looks at other areas of his life through this simplistic lens. Love is love, work is work. This is in contrast to me in which my work is my passion as well. Now, what does this all have to do with desserts? Let me explain…

In coming up with dessert ideas, there was a big difference between Father’s Day and Mother’s Day dessert designs. Every father’s day dessert had neckties or some kind of reference to work. Even the ones featuring golf seemed to hint at relaxation or retirement from work. I did see a couple of barbecue and beer references, which I don’t mind, but across the board, there was still a focus on the father in terms of their occupation. This did not sit well with me. I could easily make a naval cake for my husband, but I knew he would not like it at all. For him, his passion is with his family. Navy life and the military is just a job to him. It is something that earns the paycheck and affords a good life for his family, but it is not what defines him.

On the flip side, why are mothers not associated with business suits?! There are plenty of working mothers out there who have to work twice as hard to adjust from pregnancy hormones to dive back into the corporate world. Or take me for example, a stay-at-home mother trying to balance working from home with spending time with my growing toddler. Lets push back on the gender stereotypes even further with one of my favorite couples. My hometown friend is a hardworking nurse and mother, who supports her stay-at-home husband. Before her son was born, she supported her husband through his schooling and passion as well. Their family dynamic is only different in gender by ours but it is just as strong and nurturing. Yet look how the parental holidays have a gender bias in which they are not represented. This is how I came to reject putting a damn tie on my husband’s dessert. He is more than his occupation. He is strong, loving, generous, and protective… a layered masterpiece of a man! My thoughts immediately go to layers and how I can incorporate this with all the flavors he loves.

I came up with a caramel mousse with a smaller layer of dark chocolate coffee mousse inside. To dark chocolate coffee mousse is deeper but the intensity is matched by the caramel mousse. The caramel flavor is made from the combination of two caramels: dulce de leche and dry caramel (or as the French say, caramel a sec). Dry caramel is made with granulated sugar caramelized over medium-high heat until it is golden brown, without the addition of water, syrup, or any other ingredient. It is caramel in its purest form. How dark the color of the caramel dictates how deep of a burnt flavor you want. On the other hand, dulce de leche is made from condensed milk that is caramelized usually within a can. The pressurized cooking helps all the sugar caramelize without removing moisture, keeping the milk proteins intact. The result is a thick brown caramel that has a creamy and custardy sweetness. Mixed together with fluffy cream, sugary beaten egg yolks, and Swiss meringue, it creates a deeply delicious and velvety caramel mousse.

To add texture to the soft mousses, I top the dessert with crunchy praline grain bought from Amazon. This can be substituted with chopped, caramelized nut or some kind of chopped up brittle. I chose a ready-made topping because another topping had to made fresh. That is coffee caviar. This gastronomy technique sounds complicated but it’s really quite simple and fun too. It takes the properties of oil and water not being able to mix, and using it to our sweet advantage. Coffee is mainly water. When it is cooled and a single drop falls into a pool of oil, the oil surrounds it immediately and suspends the droplet. A small amount of gelatin was mixed into the coffee liquid beforehand. This hardens the droplets upon contact with the cold temperature of the oil. Dropping a hundred or so of these droplets and sifting them out of the oil, makes a caviar-like coffee topping. I topped the dessert with these babies and my baby daddy knew he was something quite special to me. No business attire required.

Before attempting the recipe below, read through all the directions. It is a complicated one, but if you take your time and plan out the execution, it is definitely worth it. The coffee caviar and dark chocolate mousse can be made a few days before serving. Keep in mind that the mousses need overnight freezing each, with the dark chocolate mousse setting up first before the caramel mousse.