Saturday July 4, 2009
Tokyo, Japan
Sunny
Happy Independence Day!
After a very long week with dinners Tuesday night to Friday night, I was very much looking forward to a quiet 4th of July weekend in Tokyo. But I did sign up for a cake class, as what is 4th of July without cake and besides, I was craving a Kosher Hot Dog but could not find one so cake will have to suffice :)).
Usually, when I take the cake class at ABC Cooking there are a total of 4-5 students. But I lucked out and was the only student for this particular class. I had my usual teacher who is very good (she used to work at Robuchon)
Today I was making a a Genoise cake with white chocolate cream icing. The cake itself is easy to make as I made it before. What I learned during this lesson is how to assemble and decorate the cake to look like a white dome.
Here's the recipe :
- Ingredients for the Genoise Cake:
- 2 eggs, 70grams sugar, 70grams cake flour
- 20grams unsalted butter melted and mixed with 10cc milk and about 5 drops of vanilla essence
- Syrup:
- 30cc syrup (made by heating one part sugar to 2 parts water) and 15cc framboise
- White Chocolate Cream
- 200 grams whipping cream, 30 grams white chocolate, few drops of vanilla essence
Instructions:
- Genoise Cake:
- Beat eggs with electric mixer on high for about 1 minute, then add sugar and beat for another 1-2 minutes. Next, Beat over water heated to 70-80C for ONLY 15 seconds. Then remove from water and continue beating with the bowl tilted until the eggs resemble soft whipped cream.
- Sift flour over eggs and mix by gently folding until just blended. Pour butter, milk, vanilla essence mixture over batter and continue to gently fold until no flour is visible.
- Pour into a 23cmx23x3 roll cake pan lined with cooking paper. Spread batter to cover whole pan using a scraper.
- Bake for 12 minutes at 200C in an electric oven.
- When baked remove the cake gently from the pan using the cooking paper and cool. When cooled, flip the cake, remove the paper, and flip the cake over again.
- Using no. 12, 10 and 6 circular molds, cut three size 12 cakes, one size 10 cake and one size 6 cake. Baste the cakes with syrup and set aside
The baked Genoise Cake
The 5 round cakes.
- White Chocolate Cream:
- Melt chocolate over double boiler and add vanilla essence
- Let cool a bit, then add a little whipped cream and mix at high speed with electric mixer.
- Gradually add the rest of the whipping cream and whip until nice and creamy but not too stiff.
Assembly (the hard part)
- Take one of the No. 12 cakes, flip it and baste with syrup. Spread a dollop of the white chocolate cream on the cake and spread using an icing spatula
- Place 6 frozen raspberries in a circle on top o the cake.
- Place another dollop of cream and shape like a dome by using the icing spatula
- Place another no. 12 cake and use hands to shape it like a dome
- Baste with syrup, place another dollop of cream and again shape like done using spatula.
- Repeat with no. 10 cake and finally with no. 6 cake
- Then cover the whole cake with the cream (you should have 1/2 of the cream left so use it all). Then with a spatula smooth the surface
- Refrigerate or if in a hurry freeze for about 5 minutes of so.
- Decorate the cake as you wish. You can melt some more white chocolate at pour it over the cake. It give the cake a quite elegant look.
This is what the first layer should look like
The second layer: Use the spatula to smooth the sides. Hold the spatula at an angle while turning the Lazy Susan to preserve the shape of the dome
Continue shaping with the spatula until the last layers
Then cover generously with the cream.
Smooth it out by lightly brushing the spatula against the side from bottom to top.
Not a perfect dome but pretty good for the first time I think!
I decorated it with silver balls and candied lilacs and poured melted white chocolate over the top of the cake.
Voila! Gateau Blanc
Yummy!