Unless you’ve been to a place that sells Italian ice cream, you might be wondering what stracciatella is. In Italian, it translates to “little rags”. And in Lombardy, stracciatella is a kind of gelato, that is creamy vanilla with shards of chocolate running through it. In other regions of Italy, it could refer to a type of cheese or soup, but in the spirit of this recipe being a dessert, it is strictly inspired by the gelato, which is being translated into a cake flavor. I personally love stracciatella ice cream. It is basically an Italian cousin to chocolate chip ice cream, but in this case, the chocolate is in smaller pieces, resulting in an almost crispy texture against the cold cream. Stracciatella is one of those flavors that I would either order at a gelato store, or wish I ordered because it is such an easy ice cream to enjoy and crave. And I am speaking from personal experience, because I once put on 20 pounds traveling Europe eating three ice creams a day. And I can tell you, the days where I did not have stracciatella were some of the less enjoyable moments during that trip. Well, that, and I was really young and spoiled back then, so the only way my parents could keep me well behaved was by shoving ice cream in my face all the time. While I love making it at home, ice cream might be a little tricky for everyone to make, I figured why not take the experience of eating stracciatella, namely biting through this cold cream and crunching on those tiny bits of chocolate, and translate it into a naked cake? And that was where this recipe came about. I took a classic dessert that I love in stracciatella ice cream, and turned it into an almost Milkbar-like layer cake!

The cake itself is a fluffy chocolate cake with a vanilla soak, and a light vanilla mousse that has shards of dark chocolate studded throughout it. I finished the entire cake with a chocolate soil, to give the cake a little bit of mystery to it, just so that you not fully know what you are getting when you look at the cake from a top-down angle. The cake itself is my personal favorite, being a black cacao chifffon cake, which is light as a cloud, and the perfect medium to sandwich around a vanilla cream. The mousse itself is an egg-based vanilla mousse, and I folded tiny bits of chocolate throughout it. If you want to be super anal about the chocolate texture, you could temper it into thin shards and shatter that into the mousse instead, but I found that finely chopping it gets the point across without having to spend as much time on a garnish that you won’t even see in the end product that much. The topping is made by taking our remaining chocolate, melting it down with tapioca maltodextrin, and sprinkling that on top of the cake. I figured dusting the top layer of mousse hides it, just so that when you are initially biting into the cake, you are not 100% certain what you are getting, but the more subtle chocolate notes from the soil only accent the cake and the mousse that much more!

For the chocolate cake:
4 egg whites
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tbsp black cacao powder
a pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cups all-purpose flour

In a bowl, whip up the egg whites, sugar, and baking powder to stiff peaks. In another bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, canola oil, black cacao, salt, and vanilla until combined. Into the egg yolks sift the flour first. Then fold into that the egg whites to form your cake batter. Spread the batter in a lined quarter sheet tray in an even layer. Bake at 350 degrees F for 18 minutes. Allow the cake to fully cool before cutting into 3 layers, using the scrapes of the cake as necessary to form one of the three rounds. Refrigerate the rounds for easier assembly.

For the vanilla soak:
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of salt

Mix everything together and keep refrigerate.

For the stracciatella mousse:
2 tsp gelatin powder + 2 tbsp cold water
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 egg yolks
a pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup heavy cream, whipped stiff
1/3 cup dark chocolate, crushed into small pieces

For initial assembly:
Line a 6-inch ring mold with acetate and place onto a sheet tray. Place down the scrap layer of cake first, then drizzle on 1/3 of your soak. Then spread on 1/3 of the mousse. Repeat with the other two rounds of cake, with soak, and mousse. Freeze the cake solid, at least 2 hours, before attempting to unmold and finish with the chocolate soil.

For the chocolate soil:
1oz dark chocolate, melted
1/4 cup tapioca maltodextrin
a pinch of salt

Blend together into a fine powder. Dust the top of your cake with the soil to finish.