PB & J Joconde – Almond Sponge Cake wrapped around a layer of Chocolate Almond Sponge cake under a thick layer of Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Mousse and topped with Cherry Topping.

After the pan was lined with the joconde strip and cake, we made a batch of Peanut Butter Mousse. I’ve made vanilla and chocolate mousses many times so I just adapted a vanilla mousse with the addition of peanut butter and cream cheese.

Peanut Butter Mousse
1 pkg + 1 tsp gelatin softened in 3 Tbsp water.
6 Tbsp boiling water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 cups heavy whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 oz cream cheese
2/3 cup peanut butter

Stir the boiling water into the softened gelatin. Stir till dissolved. Set aside.
Beat sugar, whipping cream and vanilla until softly mounding.
Beat the cream cheese with the peanut butter until smooth.
Beat a little whipping cream into the cream cheese peanut butter mixture. Beat in the rest of the whipping cream until almost stiff.
Gradually add the gelatin mixture to the whipped cream mixture. Do NOT overbeat or the mixture will turn grainy.
Spread the Peanut Butter Mousse in the prepared pan.

When I made the mousse for this, I didn’t measure the peanut butter but it was about 1/3 cup. It wasn’t peanut-buttery enough so I made a second batch with 2/3 cup peanut butter (as in the recipe in this post) and that was much better.

I didn’t have any fresh fruit to make a jam topping so I used cherry pie filling. A fresh Crushed Blueberry Sauce would have been divine!

The finished cake was placed in the refrigerator for several hours. Six hours would have been better and made the cake slice better.

The cake is taken out of the springform pan.

I used a candy mold to make the chocolate shapes from Ghiradelli Bittersweet Chocolate.

There were rave reviews over our first Joconde cake. PB & Jam, dressed up to the max!

I’m looking forward to making a Lemon Almond Sponge with Pineapple Cream Cheese Mousse and Pineapple Mandarin Topping. Also a Raspberry rendition. And perhaps three crisp hazelnut dacquoise layers with coffee cream filling. The joconde was good just plain so we’ll be using the mat to develop some bar cookie recipes as well. All in all, we are very satisified with our first joconde cake.