This is the birthday cake I made for my dearly god sister's birthday this year. My god sister has been deeply spoiled by me in the past few years being my dessert tasting guinness pig. Now she's more picky on cake than ever - she specifically requested from me not to bake her any green tea red bean favor cake for her birthday as she is tired of it! To make the remaining choices even more limited, she doesn't like any fruity favor cake. So cakes like strawberry shortcake, Chinese style fruit cake, or any type of cake with berries are all out! In researching for a cake she would like, I knew I had to go along the line of chocolates or coffee. This chocolate almond genoise and coffee butter cream layer cake has the best of both favors. It's a hybrid recipe I combined together from two recipes, neither of which I had tried before. But I think after making them and having to receiving good comments, I am confidence that they taste pretty good and more importantly they are not difficult to make.
The cake layer is created based off a simple Italian genoise sponge cake recipe using almond flour and the chiffron cake technique (beating the egg white separately).
Chocolate genoise
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 cup almond flour
• 6 tablespoon chocolate powder
• ¼ cup all purpose flour
• 4 egg whites, room temperature
• 4 tablespoon white granulated sugar
Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Grease an 11×17(or 12×16) sheet pan with shortening. Line with parchment and grease parchment paper. Set aside.
Combine the 2 whole eggs, confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a bowl. Combine with a hand-held mixer until batter has lightened considerably in color.(Should be a pale yellow.) Add the 1½ tsp. matcha powder and mix on low speed until combined. Set aside.
Whip the egg whites in a clean bowl on low speed until they start to froth. Add the cream of tartar and increase mixer speed, whipping until stiff peaks form. Add the 2 tbsp. granulated sugar and whip for a few seconds longer to incorporate.
Sift the flour over the pale yellow egg mixture, then scoop about ⅓ of the egg whites into the egg mixture and fold together gently with a rubber spatula. Add the remaining egg whites and fold in until uniformly mixed.
Pour the batter into the sheet pan and distribute it evenly with an offset spatula, making the layer as level and smooth as possible. Your batter will be spread very THIN.
Bake for about 8-12 minutes until the cake is just firm. Keep an eye on the cake as it bakes! It will burn easily!
Remove from the oven and turn out cake onto a cooling rack. Remove parchment. Allow to cool slightly. Cut cake into four even pieces.
Coffee butter cream (recipe adopted from Chef Defontaine's popular Paris pastisserie- Le Royale au Cafe)
• ¾ cup (or a bit less) cup sugar
• ½ cup water
• 6 large egg yolks
• 2 ½ sticks unsalted butter (cut into pieces, softened)
• 1 (starbucks) expresso shot (about 2-2.5 tablespoon)
Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a small heavy saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar, about 4 minutes. Let the mixture boil for 3 or 4 minutes, until it forms a soft ball (234-240 degree).
Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks with an electric mixer until fluffy.
As soon as the syrup is ready, with the machine running, pour the syrup onto the beaters in a very thin, steady stream until all the syrup is incorporated. Continue to beat until the mixture is fluffy and cooled to room temperature.
Add the butter, 1 or 2 pieces at a time, beating until the mixture is well blended and fluffy. Add the expresso to the butter cream and beat until well blended.
Assemble the cake:
Cut the cake into 4 even pieces
Place the bottom layer on a platter or a piece of card board cut slightly larger than the cake. With a spatula, spread about butter cream (thin layer or a bit thicker depending on one’s taste) on the layer. Gently place the second layer on top, spread another layer of butter cream, repeat to have 4 layers of cake and 4 layer of cream fillings (total of 8 layers).
No comments:
Post a Comment