Week 7: Tiramisu Cake

This week's cake was the most time consuming and complicated  cake so far!  There were so many different components and steps, but it was all worth it when people tasted the cake :)  I've made a version of Tiramisu before, with a filling made of cream cheese, sour cream and whipped cream, which I've gotten good reviews on...but I've never made the authentic thing with mascarpone cheese, mainly because it is so expensive, thankfully the ingredients were all provided in class!     

The first component we made was the lady fingers.  We did this differently from a traditional Tiramisu, where the lady fingers are each piped out separately.  We made the traditional batter but then piped it out into a cake round and one large sheet pan, with a zig zig pattern.  When they were done baking, we cut the sheet cake lady fingers into a long strip and attached it to the side of the cake in one piece.  This was much easier and less time consuming than piping out individual lady fingers, ensuring they are all the same size and layering them one at a time on the cake.

The next component was a coffee soaking syrup to add flavour to the lady fingers, which are pretty bland on their own.  This was a mixture of simple syrup, strong coffee and Kahlua.

The final component was the filling, the hardest part.  First we made whipped cream.  Then hand mixed the mascarpone cheese, making sure we didn't over mix, because it can easily become grainy.  Then dissolved sugar in egg yolks over a water bath.  Then the yolks and whipped cream were gently folded into the mascarpone.  Brandy, water and gelatin were mixed over a water bath to dissolve the gelatin.  Egg whites were whipped to soft peaks with sugar.  Then the gelatin brandy mixture was tempered and added to the cheese mixture and then the egg whites were folded in...so many steps and so many dishes!



 Finally to assemble the cake :)  This was pretty straight forward, using a cake ring, we placed the strip of lady fingers around the side and put the cake round in the bottom, brushed it all with a good amount of coffee syrup, filled it up with the mascarpone filling and topped with cocoa powder.  Several hours later, with some time in the blast chiller, it was ready to be taken home.


 

This was the most difficult cake so far, but it is also my favourite, I think the effort put in was really worth it.   The quality of ingredients and flavour of coffee really come through, without the coffee being overpowering.  Next time I do this though, I will soak the sides of the cake in even more coffee syrup, to keep it all moist.   

    

Week 6: Peach Yogurt Mousse Cake

For this week's cake, the work was spread out over 2 weeks!  So after making the Linzer torte last week, we made the sponge for this cake and left it in the freezer.

The sponge for this cake, Hot Milk Sponge, was really yummy and different from other sponge cakes I've made before and it was fairly simple to make.  What makes this cake so unique, moist and delicious was the heating up the milk and eggs with sugar separately and then whipping them together later in the recipe.  When the cake was right out of the oven, it smelled like it was going to taste really eggy, but by the time I tried some the following week after the freezing, it didn't have an eggy flavour at all.

The yogurt mousse filling was a mixture of whipped cream and yogurt, with a little bit of gelatin for added stability.  We used a full fat yogurt, but at home, you can substitute for a lower fat content, but you'd have to increase the gelatin to compensate.  The instructor explained if you were to switch out the peaches for citrus, you would have to increase the gelatin even more to prevent the citrus from breaking down the mousse.   

When using gelatin, it's important to dissolve it over heat and temper it when incorporating.  The tempering ensures that it is not shocked when mixing it into the cold mousse and the heat makes sure it fully dissolves with no lumps.

The assembly was pretty quick.  We used cake ring molds to cut the cake layers out of the sheet tray. After lining the cake ring with a strip of acetate, we layered a cake circle, brushed on a good amount of simple syrup, spread some yogurt mousse and then some diced peaches.  We repeated this, until the cake was the desired height, except the diced peaches on the top layer. 




For the top, we sliced peaches and arranged them nicely.  This was the most time consuming part, and it didn't even take that long.  To finish it off, we sealed everything in with some apricot glaze and covered the sides with mousse and sliced almonds.




We used canned peaches for all of this, so I'd be interested to see if fresh fruit would hold up the same.  I think this cake could work really well with strawberries :)