I held out for a long time before I finally got a professional mixer. I just kept using my hand-held mixer for everything. In fact, I still prefer to use the hand-held one for certain things, such as mashing potatoes. But a few years ago, my husband got me a new KitchenAid Mixer, and a couple of days later, my neighbor brought over the recipe for this cake. She told me that if I used my new mixer for nothing but this one recipe, it would be worth what we paid for it. She was right. If this isn’t the best dessert I’ve ever tasted, it’s a close competitor. Everybody I have served it to raves about it, and why not—it looks and tastes like it was made by a professional pastry chef. But even if you don’t have a professional mixer, you can still make this cake. You will just need to beat the egg mixture longer as the hand-held mixers aren’t as powerful. I do have one disclaimer though. After this beauty is said and done, there are still some uncooked eggs involved, which may be a problem for some people. If you’re still on board, this is what you’ll need:  chocolate chips, butter, eggs, sugar, vanilla, cream of tartar, whipping cream, and powdered sugar.

First you will melt the chocolate chips and butter together, and then you’ll need to separate the 7 eggs. I have this handy little doohickey for separating eggs, and it works pretty well. I believe I got it at one of those kitchen gadget parties, but I have to say that I separated many an egg before I had it and never really had a problem.

Then you’ll mix the yolks with some sugar. They’ll turn pale yellow when they’re ready.

Add the chocolate mixture and some vanilla.

Add the cream of tartar and some sugar to the egg whites and beat them until stiff peaks form.

I use the edge of the beaters to make a peak with the egg whites. If the peak doesn’t fall, as shown in the photo, you’re done beating them.

Carefully fold the whites into the chocolate mixture. This is chocolate mousse. Measure out two cups of the mouse and put into the refrigerator. The rest of the mouse goes into the springform pan and you’ll bake it at 325 for 35 minutes.

After you take the cake out of the oven, it will begin to fall, and that’s a good thing because it gives you a place to put the mousse that you stored in the refrigerator! After the cake has cooled, carefully fill in that hole in the center with the chocolate mousse, then cover it and put it back into the refrigerator.

The mousse will be easier to frost when chilled. And you’ll frost it with a whipped cream mixture.

Keep it refrigerated until serving time, preferably the next day. Loosen the sides of the springform pan, and if desired, decorate with chocolate curls.