Aldi Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake (Specially Selected) Review
Pretty dang amazing.
Previously, I reviewed a couple different frozen cream cakes from Aldi’s Deutsche Küche brand. I did not expect to like this Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake from Aldi Specially Selected brand better. But I did. I liked it better. This is a pretty dang amazing cake. You probably won’t hear me say that again.
Well, it’s amazing for being a frozen cake from a discount grocery store, anyway. It’s also amazing for the size: this is a really small cake. Tiny, in fact. Mine was a scant six inches in diameter — closer to 5.5 inches at the top, due to the domed shape.
I like desserts where there’s variety and discovery, and that’s what this cake supplies. There are maybe 8 different texture/taste profiles in the strata of this cake. This includes three different types of mousse: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white. Plus, a glossy-but-thin layer of ganache-like glaze on the exterior. Plus the actual cake, plus a pie crust bottom, plus the garnish, plus some weird crunchy balls inside. Yeah, that’s 8. I counted.
I was impressed by the high-quality texture and flavor of the mousse. The mousse is airy and light, but has a decadent, silky taste from the real cream and egg yolks.
The dark chocolate mousse has an amazing, dark, tangy chocolate taste. It was, by far, my favorite. The milk chocolate layer was “nice,” but not as sinfully flavored. The white mousse layer almost got lost — there’s very little of it, compared to the other layers.
Surprisingly, the cake itself is wonderfully moist and fluffy and light. It’s a much “nicer” cake texture than the Deutsche Küche cream cakes — more tender and flavorful. However, the layers are thin, so you experience the cake less than the other dessert layers. The cake definitely plays a subordinate role to the mousse. This is a mousse cake, not a cake-cake. I’m not mad about this — the mousse is fabulous!
(Wondering how this cake compares to Costco’s famous Tuxedo Mousse Cake? Read my review here.)
The garnish is two different kinds of TEENY-TINY chocolate chips — milk chocolate and dark chocolate. They’re like sprinkles, but better tasting. I love how they are crunchy, but also melt in my mouth. I’ve never seen chocolate chips this tiny in my life. They’re like Oompa-Loompa chocolate chips.
This is a “pretty” dessert. It’s full of elegant textural contrasts. Plus, it looks even nicer after slicing. The brown and white strata inside are sophisticated without looking too mechanical.
Nestled between the layers are some odd, crunchy, chocolate-coated balls. The label says they are “crisped rice.” I did not especially like these crunchy balls. But I don’t completely hate them. They remind me of styrofoam. But fortunately, they taste better than styrofoam. (Don’t ask me how I know what styrofoam tastes like. This is not something I should know.)
The longer this cake sat in my refrigerator, the more the chocolate coating disintegrated from the puffed balls, leaving them mostly bald at the end. These weird, bald balls didn’t provide much to this cake other than a confusing crunchy sensation.
Like the other frozen cream cakes I reviewed from Aldi, this one also has the odd pie crust bottom. It’s kinda a dry graham-style crust, but not quite. I don’t mind this crust — it helps the cake serve neatly — but it doesn’t taste very exciting, either. I ended up scraping all the other layers off of it and throwing it away. It just wasn’t worth the extra calories.
The cake is frozen and packed in a protective syrofoam collar. Mine emerged from the box in pristine condition, despite being shipped from Germany, tossed around a Florida grocery store, carted home in my car trunk, and then stuffed sideways into a tight crevice in my freezer. Respect.
Thawing Instructions for Aldi’s Germany Luxury Mousse Cake
I thawed my cake whole at room temperature, and it was ready in about 3.5 hours. Previously, I had thawed Aldi’s Deutsche Küche cream cakes in my refrigerator for a full 24 hours, which worked great and kept the cake from being dry.
You do have to remove the styrofoam circle from around the cake before thawing, because otherwise it will stick to the sides of the cake as it softens and mess up the aesthetic. I stored my unwrapped cake in the refrigerator on a plate, with a large mixing bowl up-side down to cover it.
Ingredients in Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake from Aldi
If you’ve read my other reviews, you already know that I get excited when I see real “cream” as the first ingredient. So, cream is the first ingredient here. And I’m excited. (And if you haven’t already read my other reviews, well, why haven’t you???)
Here are the ingredients:
- Cream
- Wheat Flour
- Sugar
- Water
- Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Dry Whole Milk, Chocolate Liquor, Soy Lecithin)
- Egg Yolk
- Egg
- Chocolate (Chocolate Liquor, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Natural Vanilla)
- Invert Sugar Syrup
- White Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Dry Whole Milk, Soy Lecithin, Natural Vanilla Flavor)
- Glucose Syrup
- Vegetable Fat (Palm Oil, Canola Oil)
- Chocolate Coated Crisped Rice Balls (Chocolate Liquor, Sugar, Rice Flour, Cocoa Butter, Wheat Flour, Wheat Malt, Soy Lecithin, Dextrose, Salt, Stabilizer Gum Arabic)
- Chocolate (Sugar, Chocolate Liquor, Cocoa Butter, Soy Lecithin)
- Medium Fat Cocoa
- Bovine Gelatin
- Wheat Starch, Mono- and Diglycerides, Chocolate Liquor, Whey, Sodium Carbonate, Sodium Citrate, Natural Flavor, Salt, Pectins, Citric Acid, Calcium Chloride, Sodium Citrate
This cake is made in Germany. According to the label, some of the chocolate ingredients are Rainforest Alliance Certified.
Nutrition Facts in Aldi’s Chocolate Mousse Cake
There are 8 tiny servings per cake of 75 grams each (2.65 ounces). Each slice has 250 calories, 14 grams of fat, 17 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein. Impressively, only 15 grams of the sugar are “added sugar.” The cake itself is approximately 6 inches in diameter.
Price and Shelf-life
The 21.16 ounce cake cost $8.99. For the uber small size of the cake, this isn’t exactly a bargain price, especially for being a frozen item. However, it was heckin’ good, so IDK. I’d probably buy it again. Probably.
Yeah, I will.
There are 8 servings per cake, but each serving is only 2.65 ounces, which is tiny. If you manage to get 8 servings, they will each cost $1.13. This is a delicious product, but I do think Aldi may be losing touch with their economy-priced roots. Just sayin.’
I’m still going to buy another one.
My frozen cake had an expiration date more than 1 year in the future, but the cake is supposed to be eaten within 3 days after thawing. I got a good 5 days out of mine without anything weird happening. The only big change was that the chocolate coating on the crispy rice balls seemed to melt off of them after a few days.
“The chocolate coating makes it go down easier.” Sorry, I can’t help it. IYKYK.
The End.
More Reviews of Aldi Desserts You Might Like (or Hate)
Check out these other reviews of Aldi desserts I’ve recently written:
- Aldi Cherry Frangipane Tart (Deutsche Küche)
- Aldi Bienenstich Indulgent Cakes (Deutsche Küche)
- Aldi Fruits of the Forest Strudel (Deutsche Küche)
- Aldi Donauwelle Indulgent Cakes (Deutsche Küche)
Author’s note: I have no affiliation with Aldi, and I was not compensated in any way for this review.
