Every sakura mousse cake is uniquely beautiful.

Delicate pink flowers blooming in the mirror glaze, this sakura mousse cake is a piece of art that can melt her heart.💟

Take one bite, the subtle floral sweet sakura petals blooms on the tip of the tongue, the juicy jelly-like lychee flesh pops between the teeth, the jiggly refreshing jelly slip melts in the mouth, surprisingly followed by the airy fluffy yogurt cream mousse that makes you heart flutter.

The bottom layer for a Mousse Cake

In this recipe, we are going to mix melted butter with some crushed Lotus Biscoff cookies to make an easy yet flavorful crust. 

The Lotus Biscoff cookies have a great combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and cloves tastes.

Moistened by the creamy butter, this Lotus Biscoff crust only takes you 5 minutes to make, and has such an aromatic flavor and a just-perfect texture for our sakura mousse cake.

HOW TO MAKE A BISCOFF CRUST (7-inch)?

• Line the bottom of a 7-inch springform pan with a piece of parchment paper or wax paper. 
• Put 125g Lotus Biscoff Cookies (about half bag) into a ziploc bag, use a rolling pin to roll over the bag to crush the cookies inside.

(Actually, I cheated with a food processor, because I had one and it worked faster than the rolling pin method😋.)

• Microwave 55g unsalted butter for 30 seconds, stir until melted. Or you can melt butter over a warm water bath.
• Add the crushed cookies and melted butter to a bowl, stir until evenly moistened. Transfer the cookie butter mixture to the springform pan, press firmly with the back of a spoon. Keep in the fridge until you get your mousse filling ready.

What else can I use to make the mousse cake’s bottom layer?

1. Besides Lotus Biscoff cookies, you can also use Oreos (only use the cookie parts, remove the cream filling before crushing), graham crackers, or digestive biscuits to easily make the bottom layer of a mousse cake without any extra baking steps.

2. If you have the time and patience, it’s always an extra surprise for a fluffy sakura mousse cake to have a moist chocolate cake base: 

You will just need to mix all the ingredients in a bowl, transfer the mixture to your springform pan, bake it for about 20 minutes, then wait until it completely cools down before adding the mousse filling.

You can follow the instructions on my chocolate cake recipe. 

How to use a springform pan to make Mousse Cake?

I made a mistake on choosing the right cake mold for this sakura mousse cake recipe😫. But luckily, I found a solution which saved my beautiful sakura mousse cake in time😆.

This was the springform pan I bought online for this recipe:

It’s nonstick, perfect in size, and easy to unmold.

However, it leaks.

Although it said “leakproof” in the title, I guess it’s impossible for a springform pan to be 100% leakproof with the gap on the sidewall.

I am not blaming at this springform pan at all. It can hold the cream and yogurt mousse mixtures without any leakage.

But the top layer of this sakura mousse cake is has a very watery texture, instead of mousse texture, before it’s completely cooled and set. Therefore, I should have chosen an one-piece cake ring which looks like this:

 

But no worries if you only have a springform pan at home. I figured out that we can simply cover the gap on the side wall with some yogurt cream mousse batter, chill it in the fridge until it’s fully set. 

Although the mousse layer is going to look uneven in this way, at least it can effectively prevent the top watery layer from leaking out.

Some pro tips for making a Sakura Mousse Cake:

1. How to perfectly unmold a mousse cake?

• Line the bottom of the pan with a piece of round-shape parchment paper/wax paper.
• Grease the inner walls of the springform pan with a small piece of butter (or oil spray). Theoretically you can skip this step if you are using a nonstick springform pan.

• Keep the mousse cake in the fridge until it’s fully set before unmolding. For this particular recipe, you can gently touch the top glaze layer – if this layer is fully set, your mousse cake is ready to be unmolded. It might take 3 to 6 hours depends on the refrigerator’s temperature and the gelatin’s brand.

• Warm up the sides of the mold with a hairdryer or warm towel before unmolding. There’s no need to use a torch for this step. You only need to warm up the the ring until it’s warm like your body temperature (not hot to touch). Otherwise you may melt too much of the cake and make a mess.

• Observe from the top of the mousse cake. After you use an hairdryer to warm up the sides of the mold around, you should be able to observe a thin gap between the mousse cake and the sidewall. At this point, you can unlock the springform pan and lift the ring with confidence. 

2. Yogurt Whipped Cream Mousse Filling

There are 4 main ingredients in this mousse filling:

• Greek yogurt for a mildly sour cheese-like flavor and a creamy rich texture.
• Gelatin powder for settling the mixture and creating a jiggly texture.
• Softly whipped cream for an airy fluffy texture.
• Sugar for your happiness😁.

We will start by whipping cream (with powdered sugar and vanilla extract) until soft peaks form.

What are soft peaks?

• When you lift the whisk, the cream will naturally drop off from the whisk. The dropped cream can hold its shape for about 5 seconds before gradually collapsing. When you tilt the bowl, the softly whipped cream should be able to flow around slowly. 

Then we will bloom the gelatin powder in cold water for about 5 minutes.

Note that different brands of gelatin powder have different water to powder ratios. I’d recommend using Knox gelatin powder if it’s your first time making a mousse cake and want to 100% follow my recipe.

 

Next we will melt the bloomed gelatin mixture over hot water bath, add the melted gelatin mixture to Greek yogurt to mix well, then gently fold the whipped cream to the Greek yogurt.

To make our sakura mousse cake look even prettier, I made the mousse filling into 2 different colors by using plain and strawberry flavors Greek yogurt, plus a tiny bit of red food coloring.

3. How to make the Sakura Mirror Glaze

While most sakuras are edible, some of them are actually poisonous. So make sure you use buy edible sakuras instead of pick some random sakuras on the street.

Sakura only has a subtle earthy and flowery taste. So it’s totally fine to substitute it with any other edible flowers (e.g. rose) or fruits (e.g. strawberry).

Since sakura itself doesn’t have too much flavor, I diced some fresh lychee to make this last mirror layer taste refreshinger, sweeter and fruiter.

If you don’t have lychee at home, an easy method to make this layer taste better is using Sprite to substitute water and sugar:

• Bloom 1 envelop (7g) of gelatin powder with 1/4 cup of Sprite for 5 minutes. 
• Bring 3/4 cup of Sprite to a simmer, add in the bloomed gelatin mixture and stir until dissolved. 
• Once the gelatin Sprite mixture is cooled to room temperature, carefully pour it over the fully set mousse layer. 
• Soak some sakura in the gelatin Sprite layer. keep in the fridge until completely set.

Now lets’ start!😘

How to make Sakura Mousse Cake

EQUIPMENT

• Kitchen Scale

• Springform pan (7 inch)

• Small saucepan

• hand mixer

 

INGREDIENTS

Biscuit Base

• 125 g Lotus Biscoff Cookies
• 55 g Unsalted butter

Yogurt mousse Layer

• 300 g heavy whipping cream
• 40 g powdered sugar
• 2 g vanilla extract (½ tsp)
• 14 g gelatin powder (2 envelopes)
• 6 tbsp water
• 150 g Greek yogurt – strawberry flavor
• A drop Red food coloring (Optional)
• 150 g Greek yogurt – plain flavor

Sakura Layer

• 1 cup water
• 7 g gelatin (1 envelope)
• 25 g sugar
• 30 g lychee (optional)
• 15 edible sakura flowers

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Crush 125g Lotus Biscoff Cookies (or graham crackers) with a food processor, or take a rolling pin to roll over the bag of cookies. Microwave 55g unsalted butter for 30 seconds, stir until melted.

2. Add the crushed cookies and melted butter to a bowl, stir until evenly moistened.

3. Line the bottom of a 7-inch springform pan with a piece of parchment paper. Transfer the cookie butter mixture to the springform pan, press firmly with the back of a spoon. Keep in the fridge.

4. Add 300g heavy whipping cream, 40g powdered sugar, and 2g vanilla extract to a large bowl, whip until soft peaks form. Cover the bowl with food wrap and keep in the fridge.

5. Prepare 2 small bowls, add 3 tbsps of cold water to EACH bowl, sprinkle 7g gelatin powder to EACH bowl. Set aside and let bloom for 5 minutes.

6. Add 1 cup of water to a small saucepan, bring to a boil. Keep the water simmering over low heat. Place one bowl of the bloomed gelatin to the saucepan, stir over hot water bath until dissolved.

7. Add melted gelatin and 150g strawberry flavor Greek yogurt to a large bowl, stir until well combined. Use a spatula to gently fold 170g whipped cream into the yogurt mixture. Optionally add 1 drop of red food coloring to the mixture to add a pink color.

8. Pour the pink yogurt mousse over the biscuit crust, smooth the surface with the back of a spoon. Cover the bowl with food wrap and keep in the fridge for 30 minutes.

9. Place the other bowl of the bloomed gelatin to the saucepan, stir over hot water bath until dissolved.

10. Add melted gelatin and 150g plain Greek yogurt to a large bowl, stir until well combined. Use a spatula to gently fold 170g whipped cream into the yogurt mixture.

11. Pour the plain yogurt mousse over the pink yogurt mousse layer, smooth the surface with the back of a spoon. Cover the bowl with food wrap and keep in the fridge for 1 hour.

12. Soak 15 dried edible sakura flowers in cold water for 15 minutes. Add ¼ cup of cold water to a small bowl, sprinkle 7g gelatin powder over the water. Set aside and let bloom for 5 minutes.

13. Add 30g diced lychee, 25g sugar, and ¾ cup of water to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil. Keep the water simmering over low heat.

14. Pour bloomed gelatin to the lychee sugar water, stir until dissolved. Set aside and let cool to room temperature.

15. Carefully pour the cooled lychee gelatin mixture over the yogurt mousse.

16. Place soaked sakura flowers on the top. Cover with food wrap, keep in the fridge for at least 2 hours until completely set.

17. Use a hairdryer to heat the sides of the springform pan until it feels warm to touch. Remove the sakura mousse cake from the mold.

18. Cut into 8 slices. Enjoy!