White Gold Passion Cake

Great synergy of passionfruit, vanilla and white chocolate.

I still had some passionfruit left in the freezer from last year so decided to test out "Rose's Heavenly Cakes" for the first time with this recipe. As usual the recipes are crystal clear and flavour combinations are truly complimentary without making one ingredient stand out too much. She also seems to have the right sugar balance for my taste which is always a concern with American authors in particular.

The construction is a vanilla genoese split in half, passionfruit syrup brushed over it, passionfruit curd filling in between the two layers with a white chocolate and cream cheese frosting on the outside. Nothing terribly difficult but you do need a lot of passionfruit and plan ahead.

The thing I was happiest about was trying out Rose's genoese recipe which worked beautifully. Had no problems rising but I was worried it would burn once it rose over the top of the tin.

The centre did sink quite a bit so next time I might bake it for longer even though I already baked it longer than the maximum time recommended. When I cut off the crust before assembly it was still very moist so I could have baked it longer and I don't think it would have burnt.

The only problem I found with Rose's recipe was the advice on buying fresh passion fruit. She recommends buying fruit that "purple and wrinkled all over." I was sure that off the vine they are not wrinkled so I bought a few a did a taste test. For the three below none of them were very wrinkly and actually the smoothest one (on the right) was the sweetest. As I suspected the remaining ones simply became more wrinkled the longer they sat in my fruit bowl. Presumably they were drying out. Every fruit that I bought whether brown and wrinkly, dark purple and dimpled or reddish purple and smooth all tasted ripe. The real difference seemed to be their weight with the heavier ones naturally containing more seeds and juice.

Decadent breakfast

Dark Chocolate and Cherry Bread

I had an amazing breakfast this morning of Dark Chocolate and Sour Cherry Bread spread with a little creme fraiche and jam with a coffee. Of course I had to do some work last night to make it happen!

The recipe came from "La Boulangerie" by Gregoire Michaud who bakes at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong. The book is definitely not for the inexperienced baker with some instructions being very brief indeed but if you have experience shaping and handling moist doughs you should be fine and there are some excellent flavour combinations in the book, just like the one above.

The information at the start of the book is fantastically detailed giving you ways to calculate the temperature of the water you should use to arrive at the target fermentation temperature taking into account the friction of the mixer. There's also lots of info on steam and how to control it in the home setting, glutenin, gliadin and metabolic pathways for your yeast. Some of the highlights for me are looking through the recipes and seeing some innovative shaping methods and the fact that all recipes are for instant dry yeast.

I halved the quantity to make two boules and although my wife was a bit confused about whether it's meant to be sweet or savoury it turned out well with surprisingly good structure, open crumb and good oven spring. If you're not sure how to categorise it think of it as being like a chocolate croissant.

My only criticism of the recipe is that it seems a little salty but my scales are not that accurate for small measurements and I usually measure my salt by volume. Of course grams are the way to go for accurate measurements because flaked salt will be less dense than table salt giving vastly different results than if you were to go by volume measurements.

Next will be the Pecan and Raisin Boule then the Portobello Mushroom Country Bread!

Crepes

No it's not a pancake! Crepes are very thin and have the perfect balance between topping and base which is definitely not the case in a pancake. I used to like them best one of the traditional ways which is with lemon juice and sugar but I've recently become wary of the amount of sugar needed and prefer to roll then up with poached blueberries or strawberries with a little ice cream for a great chaud-froid sensation.

Ingredients  

125 g plain flour 

15 g caster sugar 

Pinch of salt 

2 eggs 

325 ml milk 

100 ml double cream 

Vanilla extract, few drops 

20 g clarified butter 

Whisk the flour, sugar, salt and eggs well. 

Add the milk gradually, whisking well to make a thin batter. Stir in the cream. 

Leave batter to rest for an hour (essential). 

Stir in vanilla. 

Heat a crepe pan over low to medium heat. Brush with a little clarified butter and ladle in a little batter swirling it round to just coat the pan. 

When holes appear on the surface after about 1 minute turn it over for another 45 seconds. 

Eat warm! 

To keep for another day interleave them with grease proof paper. Reheat each one for a few seconds in the microwave

Nectarines in season

Nectarine Sorbet in Sable Cup

White nectarines are in season and as my summer sorbet making was already in full swing I decided to make...nectarine sorbet. Some may wonder why spoil a blissfully delicious fruit by adding sugar to it. I have to agree there are few things better than biting into a full-flavoured nectarine and slurping up the juices but when you buy a few you rarely get every single one to be that delicious. These were very fragrant at the supermarket the other day but quite firm so I left them to soften up a bit on the window sill.

Normally when I make a fruit sorbet I add a sugar syrup to it but I was intrigued by a David Lebovitz post where he mentioned the Italians just adding sugar to the whole fruit (I think it was peaches he was talking about) so decided to do the same. Surprisingly, I didn't see any recipes online with this method.

I stoned the fruit and then put them in the blender with some icing sugar, tasted for sweetness and added some more sugar just to be sure it was sweet enough once frozen and to help with the freezing process i.e. preventing enormous ice crystals from forming. I also added the obligatory teaspoon of lemon juice to accentuate the flavours or to help preserve the fruit.

Verdict: Beautiful, simple, fragrant and perfect served with a sable biscuit or in a sable pastry cup.

Nectarine Sorbet Recipe (makes about 1 litre)

Ingredients:

900g white flesh nectarines (about 7)

110g icing sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

Pit the nectarines.

Blend with the icing sugar. 

Adjust sweetness depending on the ripeness of your fruit. (Should be a little sweeter than you would like at room temperature.)

Strain through a sieve to remove skins. 

Add some of the skins back in for texture if you like.

Refrigerate puree till chilled.

Pour into your ice cream machine and churn.

Serve right away or freeze in an airtight container.

If fully frozen then soften by placing in fridge for 30-45 minutes (depending on your fridge and freezer temperatures) so it's easy to scoop and flavours are more fragrant on the tongue.

Chocolate Mousse Cake with Cherry Compote

This is probably the best dessert I've ever made. It's from "Desserts" by Michel Roux and although a bit time consuming it's well worth it!

It's basically a Genoese cut in half, each half imbibed with cherry syrup, chocolate mousse in the middle with poached cherries, chocolate mousse on the sides and top with chocolate flakes. Serve with some reserved cherries from the compote and ice cream if you like.

The verdict for those who don't want to read the recipe and just live vicariously through others' cooking. As I was making it I said "Ohh, my GOD!" several times which I am not in the habit of doing. First after I tasted the cherry syrup, then when I tasted the mousse, then when I tried a bit of mousse with syrup and of course after serving.  

Whenever I had a slice of Black Forest Cake I was expecting something more than it is. This is what I had always wanted but had never known existed.

Make it, beg your friends, family to make it, whatever, but find a way to eat this cake!　

Recipe

You need to make:

• Genoese sponge
• chocolate mousse (which means making a creme anglaise for this one)
• cherry compote

20cm chocolate Genoese sponge

If you've got your own favourite recipe for this then use it. I'd never made one before so I used Michel Roux's with a couple of tweaks in the method only.

Ingredients: 
butter for greasing cake tin
75g plain flour
50g cocoa powder (I used Van Houten's)
4 eggs at room temp
125g caster sugar
30g butter, melted and cooled to lukewarm

Preheat oven to 190°C and butter and lightly flour your 20cm loose based cake tin.
Whisk eggs and sugar together until at least tripled in volume and mixture is pale like cream and leaves a trail in the mix (ribbon stage).
Shower in the flour and cocoa and fold in with a balloon whisk or spatula.
Mix a cup of the mixture with the melted butter to enable the butter to be more easily incorporated.
Then fold in the butter mixture into the rest of the mixture. Don't overwork.
Pour into the pan and bake for 30 minutes or until springy to touch. If your oven cooks unevenly then turn the pan 180° after 20 minutes.
Remove from oven and pan and invert onto a wire rack. Remove the paper the tin and paper.
Turn upright onto another wire rack and allow to cool
Allow your friends and family to drool over the cake and beg you for a slice while you patiently say, "Not until tomorrow!"

While that's baking you can start on the...

Cherry Compote

Ingredients:
400g ripe black cherries, stoned 

150g caster sugar

pared zest of an orange (not grated because you'll want to remove it later)

2 cloves

Put the cherries in a saucepan, cover with water and add sugar, zest and cloves and simmer gently for 20-30 minutes until the cherries are soft. They shouldn't fall apart like plums so there's not real risk of over-poaching them.

Remove from heat and let cool in syrup. 

Drain the cherries and remove zest and cloves.

Further reduce 1/3 of the sugar juice until syrupy.
Mix with 1/3 of the cherries. (This is for serving with the cake).

Chocolate Mousse
I'd never made a mousse this way before and I think I will be again! One of the benefits is you have excess creme anglaise you can add a bit of cream to and put in the ice cream mixer!

Ingredients:

200ml creme anglaise

200ml double cream or creme fraiche

200g dark chocolate, 60-70% cocoa, chopped

Creme anglaise

6 egg yolks

500ml milk

125g caster sugar (I used 100g)

1 vanilla pod, split

Scrape vanilla seeds and 2/3 of the sugar into the milk in a saucepan and put the whole pod in as well.

Bring to boil slowly while you whisk the egg yolks and sugar in a heatproof bowl. Whisk till light ribbons appear when you lift the whisk.

Slowly pour boiling milk into the egg yolks while you whisk. (You might like to have your bowl on a silicon mat or a wet towel to stop it from sliding around.)

Pour back into saucepan and heat slowly stirring all the time with a wooden spatula (so you can get in the edge of the pan) until it thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spatula. The texture will noticeably get glossier and the strokes of the spatula will leave a different wake as the viscosity increases.

Strain through a fine sieve and use 200ml in the chocolate mousse recipe. Put remainder into a jug and cover with clingfilm touching the surface to prevent a skin forming.

Back to the chocolate mousse...

Pour the hot creme anglaise over the chocolate and stir. Mix with a whisk until smooth. Should be just warm depending on the initial temperature of your chocolate. 

Whip the cream to ribbon stage in another bowl and fold into the chocolate custard.

Reserve for assembly of the cake. (I needed to put mine in the fridge to make the consistency right for spreading on the cake.)

Assembly (almost there)

Split the sponge in half and place cut side up on a piece of greaseproof paper.

Use a brush to apply the cherry syrup all over both halves.

Place the top half of the sponge cut side up on a large white plate.

Place a 22cm circle mould over it. (I cut a little off the rim of the sponge and then used a 20cm springform tin for my mould.

Apply a thick layer of mousse over the sponge and between the mould and the sponge.

Press all the cherries in lightly into the mousse.

Place the second sponge half cut side down on top. Spread thin layer of mousse over the top and right down the sides. Smooth the top with a palette knife (doesn't have to be perfect because you'll cover it with chocolate shavings or curls.

Refrigerate for several hours preferably overnight for so the flavours meld in the sponge.

After a couple of hours you can remove the circle mould with a blowtorch or hot towel.

Sprinkle chocolate shavings all over the cake and put back in the refrigerator.

EAT!

Cut with a hot blade and serve with a couple of cherries from the compote and a spoon of cream or ice cream if you like. (My wife likes the ice cream but I like it neat.) Hold back on the syrup or you may get an uncomfortable sugar taste in the throat. 

Serves between 8 big -12 polite but sufficient slices

Notes:

Always use scales for your baking. If you don't like using metric get used to it. I can convert in my head from American recipes, you can too with practice. 450g is a pound, 30g is an ounce (roughly). 1 litre of water is 1000g and measuring cups are notoriously unreliable for volume measuring.

I used Valrhona's 61% dark chocolate.

I use creme fraiche because I can get it fresh. If I use cream it has to be UHT! 

The cherries I used were ripe but weren't the best I've had, just full of flavour, only some were soft.

I used a low protein flour for the genoise but I don't think that's crucial.