You’ll need to plan on several hours of active prep work and even more hours of resting / cooling time. But, while it will have you spend a hefty chunk of time in the kitchen, I swear it’s so decadent, it’s totally worth all the hard work. I’m not gonna lie to you, making Opera Cake from scratch will demand SERIOUS time and effort on your part, and I do mean serious. A luscious layer of soft and buttery, dark chocolate glaze finishes off this heavenly treat.
#Traditional opera cake full#
If you’ve ever had Opera Cake in the past, even if it was just this “one” time, then I’m sure that this classic French dessert needs no introduction to you… I’m positive that you remember the experience full well.įor those who are not familiar with this delicacy, let me fill you in on it: you’re looking at pure bliss, pure heaven, pure perfection. We’re talking thin sheets of delicate Joconde almond cake drenched in a sweet coffee syrup, topped with layers of melt-in-your-mouth coffee buttercream and silky smooth, super intense dark chocolate ganache. I took the cake into work the next day and it didn't take long for it to disappear.While making Opera Cake from scratch will have you spend a hefty chunk of time in the kitchen, I swear it’s so decadent, it’s totally worth the effort. I put the stripey pattern on the sides with my new cake comb and then Will helped me come up with the pink sugar (reduced cranberry juice tossed with sugar) to decorate the top. It was a bit less involved to execute and I thought the resulting buttercream was exceptionally creamy and non-greasy. For both methods, you finish it off with tons and tons of butter. With this recipe, the sugar and egg whites are stirred together over a double boiler and then whipped. With the Italian buttercream, you whip egg whites and gently pour in hot, melted sugar. The really new part for me was the buttercream, which I think was a Swiss buttercream, rather than the Italian style I usually make. The filling in the recipe is raspberry jam, but I had a random jar of sour cherry and rhubarb jam that worked out really well. The cake part was a very nice, basic white cake, with a tiny bit of a lemon flavor. The Perfect Party Cake is from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.
This was my second challenge from the Daring Bakers site and, lo and behold, I already owned the book that the recipe was from. Posted by Ben 5:25 PM | Monday, April 28, 2008 I don't think anybody at the birthday party complained. Also mixed just a bit of the mousse into the buttercream for a little extra flavor. Could some chemical in the peppermint interfere with whipping? I'll have to look it up. I broke it twice and had to go out to buy more. I had a really hard time whipping the cream, which should be really simple. For peppermint, I infused dry peppermint leaves into heavy cream, whipped the cream, and incorporated it into the white chocolate mousse layer. I haven't used this extract much, so it was interesting to see the effect it had. The syrup was absorbed into the almond cake layers of the Opera Cake, imparting a hint of chocolateyness, but no dark color. To kind of compromise this with the no-chocolate stipulation, I avoided using actual chocolate, but instead made the simple syrup component with a chocolate extract. The birthday boy, my friend Michael, requested mint and chocolate. Traditionally made with coffee and lots of chocolate, this recipe was going for more of a springtime pastel look and taste. This month's Daring Bakers challenge was an Opera Cake, but with a slight twist.
Still have a pint of this left, if you can make it to my place in the next few days. I think next time I would try candying the coffee beans, to cut the bitterness a little further. Also not bad, especially considering I just pulled it off the top of my head. With the leftover milk and cream, I threw together a more traditional egg-thickened ice cream with chai latte mix, extra cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and cardamom, and chopped coffee beans.
Incidentally, if you ever have $100 to blow on a birthday gift for someone, I can think of worse gifts than Jeni's Signature 9. Not sure if anyone got pictures, but I'll see what I can find. I brought it to a picnic at the park last week with some sugar cones and it disappeared in no time. Okay, I kind of made up the swirl part and it was really more brown sugar chunks than swirls, but whatever. Using the vanilla recipe as a base, I did a cinnamon ice cream with a muscovado brown sugar swirl. Her flavors are fascinating, but even more interesting to me is that, unlike every other ice cream recipe in the universe, these are thickened with corn starch instead of eggs. I really wanted to try making an ice cream in the style of Jeni's Ice Cream of Columbus, OH.
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