Opera Cake

My favourite cake at Grossmont Cake Classes has been the Opera Cake. Layers of delicious almond jaconde moistened with coffee syrup, layered with chocolate ganache and coffee buttercream. How could you go wrong!!



I was excited to make this as I'd made the opera cake with the daring bakers just over a year ago, with white chocolate and I knew I'd love the dark chocolate and coffee flavors.



Be sure to serve this at room temperature, its much better when the chocolate and buttercream is nice and melty.


Opera Cake- Serves around 12



Joconde

6oz almond meal
4 oz powdered sugar
2 1/2 oz cake flour
6 eggs
6 egg whites
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
2 1/2 oz sugar
2 1/2 oz butter melted

Sift together the almond meal, powdered sugar and cake flour

Beat egg whites with cream of tartar, adding sugar slowly until the eggs reach medium peaks.

Whisk the eggs into the flour mixture, fold the egg white mixture in followed by the butter. Be sure to make sure the butter didnt just fall straight to the bottom but dont overmix.


Bake on a parchment lined half sheet pan at 350f convection for 5-7 mins.



Coffee Buttercream

5 1/2 oz sugar
2 1/2 oz water
1 tbsp corn syrup
2 eggs
7 oz butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp mocha extract



Heat the sugar water and corn syrup to a temperature of 240f. Meanwhile, whip up the eggs for about 5 mins until theyy reach full volume. Slowly pour the syrup into the eggs, beating continuously. Beat until cool, then add the butter a tablespoon at a time while beating. If the mixture curdles, stop adding butter and beat until it comes together again. Add the vanilla, salt and mocha extract and beat to combine.



Espresso Syrup

5 oz espresso
2 1/2 oz sugar
3 oz kahlua


Dissolve the sugar in the espresso, heating. Add the kahlua



Ganache
20 oz cream
1 lb 3 oz dark chocolate-chopped


Heat the cream until it reaches a boil. Add to the chocolate and mix until smooth. Keep half warm and allow half to cool to room temperature

Assembly

Cut the cake into 3 equal pieces

Take the bottom layer, brush with coffee syrup

Top with a layer of the room temperature ganache

Add cake, brush with syrup

Add a layer of half of the buttercream

Top with the last layer of cake, brush with syrup

Spread the rest of the buttercream on the top.

Chill for around 30 mins or so

Pour the warm ganache over the top and smooth.

Trim the edges, then cut into slices.

Optional: Write 'opera' on the slices

Raspberry Mousse Charlotte

Another Grossmont cake! We made a delicious raspberry mousse cake, 2 layers of sponge with layers of raspberry mousse, surrounded by ladies fingers and topped with a pretty mirror layer, meringue and raspberries.

I learned a clever technique to pipe the lady fingers out to make things a lot easier. This is a really nice cake to serve for a special birthday, I'm annoyed I didnt get a shot of a slice, its very pretty indeed, not to mention delicious!



Raspberry Mousse Charlotte

Makes 2 cakes

Sponge Cake

makes 1 9" cake

4 1/2 oz cake flour
3 1/4 oz sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

3 egg yolks
2 oz oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup water

4 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
2 oz sugar


Sift together the dry ingredients, whisk together the eggs, oil, vanilla and water then whip the egg whites and cream of tartar, adding the sugar together and beating until the mixture has soft peaks.


Fold the egg yolks into the egg white mixture followed by the flour.

Bake for around 30 mins at 325 in a conventional oven. Allow to cool while the other components are made.

Ladies Fingers

400f convection oven 3-5 mins

2 2/3 oz AP flour
2 oz corn starch

4 egg yolks
pinch of salt
2 oz sugar

4 egg whites
2 1/2 oz sugar
3 drops lemon juice

Sift the flour and corn starch twice. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar for about 5 minutes until they reach full volume. Whip up the egg whites with the lemon juice, adding the sugar slowly and allowing to form medium peaks. Fold the egg whites into the egg yolks, followed by the dry ingredients

Prepare a baking sheet with a guide so that you can pipe the batter to surround a cake, for us, our circles were about 2 inches high, so we piped our ladies fingers to be slightly wider. As you can see, this is a quick technique for forming the surround for a cake without having to make individual fingers.

Bake at 400f in a convection oven for 3-5 mins, rotating when half done. Remove from oven and take the parchment out of the baking sheet to prevent over cooking.

Raspberry Mousse

18 oz seedless raspberry puree
8 oz sugar
pinch salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice

6 sheets gelatin=bloomed in cold water

24 oz whipping cream

Warm the puree, sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan until sugar is completely dissolved. Squeeze out the gelatin and whisk into the puree mixture. Allow to cool.

Whip the cream until medium peaks form, then fold the raspberry mixture in.

Raspberry Glaze prepare when cake is ready to serve

6 oz seedless raspberry puree
4 oz water
3 1/2 oz sugar
1 tablespoon pectin

2 sheets gelatin-bloomed

Combine the puree, water and sugar and bring to a boil. Sprinkle pectin in, boil gently for a minute, then strain through a chinois. Strain gelatin and whisk in.


Italian meringue

1 parts egg whites
2 parts sugar

whisk over boiling water until temp reaches 240f then whip at high speed until firm.

Soaking syrup
4 oz simple syrup
1 oz Chambord

Assembly


Cut the ladies fingers to fit into a 9" cake ring, fit in nice and snug.

Cut the cake into 4 layers and trim until it fits snug inside the ladies finger ring. Brush with syrup then ladle a layer of raspberry mousse. Add second cake, brush with more syrup them add more raspberry mousse. Get a nice flat finish, leaving 1/4 inch for the glaze, then freeze the whole cake for at least 4 hours until firm.

Remove cake from freezer, then quickly pour glaze over the top. Allow to cool for 30 mins

Pipe meringue onto cake

Brown meringue wiht a blowtorch, making sure not to burn the sides of the cake

Decorate with raspberries, make sure the cake has fully defrosted before serving.

Chocolate Mousse Cake- More Grossmont Cake Classes

Mmm pretty! We made a stellar and beautiful chocolate mousse cake in class. I'm showing you the chef's version since he did such a wonderful job and we still have a little to learn!

Chocolate mousse cake-makes 2 x 9 in cakes- chef James Foran

9oz cake flour

2 oz cocoa

8oz sugar

1 tbs baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

6 yolks

5 1/2 oz buttermilk

4 oz oil

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp orange zest

8 egg whites

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

3 oz sugar

Heat oven to 350f (conventional)

Sift dry ingredients together and set aside

Whip up yolks, sugar, oil, vanilla and zest

Whip egg whites to a medium peak.

Fold egg whites into yolk mixture followed by dry ingredients. Bake for 30 mins.

Chocolate Mousse

40oz cream

1lb 8oz bittersweet chocolate

Beat cream until it reaches soft peaks. Meanwhile, melt chocolate.

Take 1/3 cream and beat into chocolate then quickly fold remaining cream in. This is best done as quickly as possible when the two are at similar temperatures, try and get the cream room temperature.

Soak

2oz Grand Marnier

1oz simple syrup

Chocolate Glaze

14oz chocolate, chopped

14 oz cream

Heat cream until the sides are bubbling. Add to chocolate, leave to sit then mix until smooth. Try not to mix too much, that adds bubbles.

As always, get a nice clean top to the cake Cut 3 layers of cake. Set one layer aside.Cut cake to fit a nice clear space for mousse in a 9 inch cake ring. Use soak to moisten cakes.

Beating cream into chocolate mousse

Folding cream into chocolate/cream mixturePipe into mould around cake, making sure to use enough pressure to get the mousse around the cakeCover top of cake with mousseTop with another layer of cake, pipe more mousse, then get a nice clean finish on the top. Freeze for at least 2 hours Release from pan with a blowtorch.Now for the bit that is harder than it looks. Working quickly, pour chocolate ganache over cake, allow to run evenly down the sides of the cake

Use a heated spachelor to make one clean sweep across cake. This is best only done once.

Here are our team's cakes. We quickly realised that a frozen cake and hot ganache is very tricky to work with. Also, make sure to use lots of soaking syrup to make sure the cake stays nice and moist.

Class 2 at Grossmont-carrot cupcakes

This week was nice and simple, I've made tons of carrot cupcakes recently, so it didnt seem that amazing, but it was interesting to see chef's take on the carrot cake, his recipe was really heavy on the carrots, and used currants, since it was cupcakes he figured he'd go small on everything. Most of the fat was replaced with yoghurt and it wasnt missed. Sometimes this makes a muffiney cake, but in this case it was really nice and very healthy, until we added the frosting!!



I'm all in a quandry about whether this is my favourite, or I like the delia smith recipe. Aagh!


The cream cheese frosting was also really interesting, it had a little white chocolate in it, which apparently stabilizes the frosting a little more. I prefer using less butter and sugar, although it does give a slightly runnier frosting.

Our group learned a very important lesson about the mixer too, our blade was too low and was rubbing against the bowl making the frosting grey, so we had to throw the whole batch out and start again. All it needed was a little adjustment.





We were also taught to mix our raisins and carrots with the flour to get an even distribution in the cake. This is particularly important when you just have, say a few nuts in a cake.









The cakes were piped with a little swirl of the delicious frosting.















Marzipan was dyed orange to make a carrot

More was dyed green and leaves were made

My carrots

Some finished cakes.

Carrot Cupcakes -James Foran

makes 1 dozen

350f conventional oven, 25 minute

Dry

9oz carrots, grated

9oz all purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg

2 oz currants

1 1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger

Wet

1/2 tsp kosher salt

7 1/2 oz sugar

1 1/2 oz brown sugar

2 eggs

4 oz brown sugar

4 oz oil

Preheat oven to 350f

Sift the flour, baking soda and baking powder together and mix with the other dry ingredients. Whisk the wet ingredients together for a couple minutes then combine, keeping stirring to a minimum. Scoop into 12 cupcakes and bake at 350f for around 25 mins

Cool for 5 mins in the pan, then on a rack.

White chocolate cream cheese frosting

8oz cream cheese

1oz butter

3/4 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla

3 1/2 oz powdered sugar

2 oz white chocolate, melted

Beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth, add the lemon juice and vanilla and beat, then add the sugar, slowly mixing until combined, then beat for another minute. Add the white chocolate to combine then pipe onto the cooled cupcakes. Add a little marzipan carrot if you like!

Stay tuned for a monster post next week, we're doing mousse cakes, a 2 week process!

Cakes at Grossmont-Black Forest Gateau Tutorial

It was our first practical week at the cake class at Grossmont College. Chef chose the classic Black Forest Gateau to start.

I dont think there needs to be a recipe, its really just a chocolate cake with lots of whipped cream (2 cups!!) with kirsh, sour cherries and chocolate shavings.

This is the cake I made with my partner, she's a very accomplished decorator, so it was a breeze for her to get it looking perfect.

I thought I'd include the step by step process, apologies for a very long post!

First step was shaving the chocolate with a pallete knife to try and get curls. As usual, Chef makes it look a lot easier than it is! As we get more and more frustrated, the warmer the chocolate gets, the harder it is to make curls!!

We made a chiffon cake, where we separated the eggs and whipped up the whites for extra volume.

The cake was carefully cut into three. The key to this is keeping the knife flat and spinning the cake around instead of going straight through.

The cake layers were then placed on boards and brished with sweetened, kirsh and cherry juice.

Whipped cream was spread onto each layer, not too much!

Sour cherries are dotted around the cream

Another layer of cake

More cream!

Pop the top on!

Use a cake board to push everything down. Dont worry about the cream oozing out, we'll clean that up in a minute

Top with yet more cream!

Get the top really nice and smooth, that will be showing









Put cream around the sides. This isnt so important, since we'll be covering with chocolate

A clean white cream covered cake, already for decoration. Once again, chef makes it look much easier than it is! Take the spatula and dip in warm water, then smooth for a clean finish

Carefully put the chocolate curls on the sides.

Score marks to show where the cake will be sliced

Pipe rosettes in each of the slices. This should be super easy since we all learned in Basic Baking (cough!!).

Put a cherry on each of the rosettes and bob's your uncle!

Cut a slice and get everyone salivating as its really dinner time for everyone.