A cake for my Mother - A cake with 3 Cs!

It was my mother's birthday yesterday and we all congregated at my parent's house for dinner. I had decided to make her a cake and originally planned on making Chocolate Brownies. However, I realised that I still had an opened jumbo pack of Sponge Fingers. I also had a lot of cream leftover that needed to be used quickly. So... I decided I would whip up a dessert instead and pass if off as a cake!




I thought long and hard (not that long really and neither that hard!) and I came up with a plan. I would make a layer of Coffee whipped Cream and another layer of whipped Chocolate Ganache. I'd then layer these creams over sponge fingers which would be soaked in some sort of alcohol - Cointreau maybe? Sounded like a plan indeed. I would also need to be able to unmould the whole thing.

This is what I did for this Original, First-Time, Chocolate-Coffee-Cointreau Cake or the 3Cs Cake.

Ingredients
for the sponge layers
2 packets sponge fingers
1/2 cup Cointreau
1/2 cup water

for the coffee cream
1 tbsp instantcoffee
350 ml cream
2 tbsp liquid glucose
1 tbsp Icing Sugar

for the whipped chocolate ganache
200g good quality dark chocolate
300ml Cream
1 tbsp liquid glucose

Method
Line a square pyrex or other dish with plastic wrap all the way to the top.
Make the coffee cream by dissolving the coffee in a little heated cream. Add this back to the rest of the cream and whip with the liquid glucose and icing sugar till stiff. Set aside in fridge

Make the Whipped Chocolate Ganace by heating the cream to boiling and then pouring over the chocolate. Mix well till smooth and then add in the liquid glucose. Allow to cool before whipping up till stiff. Set aside.

Make a Cointreau syrup by mixing the cointreau with water. Set aside

Assemble the cake by spreading a little Coffee Cream on the bottom of the pyrex dish(which is lined with plastic wrap). Arrange one layer of sponge fingers on top of the cream and using half the Cointreau Syrup, soak the fingers. Cover with the rest of the Coffee Cream. Place another layer of sponge fingers over the coffee cream and soak with the remaining syrup. Cover with the Whipped Chocolate Ganache. Chill overnight or for at least 4 hours.

When ready to unmould, lift the plastic wrap to loosen the dessert and then place a large plate over the pyrex bowl and then overturn it. Remove the plastic wrap carefully. Garnish with strawberries or almonds or whatever you like!




I must admit I was particularly pleased with how this turned out. The best part was that the dessert went down really well with everybody and my Mom in particular enjoyed it immensely.

Mom cutting her cake. Since there are only two candles on the cake, it shows she's still a young 20!!


Happy Birthday Amma!

080808 and a Mocha Biscuit Pudding

Before I start this post, I just want to recognise that today is the 8th of August 2008. It is thus the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, that I understand is going to start sharp at 8:08 pm. So, in commemoration of the fascination with the number 8, I have also scheduled my post to be posted at 8:08pm on the 080808 - although in Malaysia we would write it as 8/8/08 and to complicate things further, since the Y2K 'problem' I tend to write dates in full so i would write it as 8 August 2008, just to minimise any ambiguity.

So anyway, so much for dates. On to the Dessert!




My son has developed a taste for Mocha. Yes, and coffee too! Before anyone starts screaming at me for letting a 7 year old have coffee - its usually just a teeny tiny sip. More often than not its in a kind of mocha drink too. He loves it! Anyway, anything in moderation is okay in my books.

So one day back in early July, when I had some leftover cream that had to be used up in a hurry, I decided I would make a quick and easy dessert that was - you guessed it - Mocha Flavoured!

The idea from this comes from eating cookies with ice cream. Except, intstead of using ice cream, I make a soft whip and then dollop it over some cookies.

This is what I did.

Ingredients
600ml cream
250gm block chocolate with whole Almonds
1-2 tbsp instant coffee powder
a little milk
Choc Chip Cookies

method
Break the chocolate and place in a large bowl. Bring the cream to boil and then pour over the Chocolate. Stir well till chocolate is completely melted. Strain into another bowl with a wire mesh to strain out the almonds. Set the almonds aside and add the instant coffee powder to the hot chocolate mixture. Mix well and let the chocolate ganache cool.
Whip the chocolate ganache until soft peaks form. Chill in fridge until ready to use. To serve, dip a choc chip cookie in a little milk and then place into a bowl. Spoon over with chocolate ganache and garnish with an almond.



The taste and look of this recipe belies how easy it is to make. It was simply delicious and my son polished off two bowls.



I wont tell you how many bowls I polished off myself!

Opera Cake without terrorists....

After succesfully completing what I called the Albino Opera Cake. for the May Daring Bakers Challenge, I decided to make the traditional Opera Cake. For those of you that read my DB post, you'd know that my son thinks our Daring Bakers logo looks like a bunch of terrorists attacking a town. So, since this post doesn't really involve the Daring Bakers, no terrorists were involved in the making of this cake - and hence the title!




A Traditional Opera Cake is full of flavours from the Dark Side - coffee soaked Joconde, layers of coffee buttercream and chocolate mousse and finally covered with a chocolate glaze. Yoda will definitely not be happy.

Hmmmm... Evil the Dark Side is....

I made a small rectangle Opera rather than the large square Opera. So does that make my Opera an Operetta?!! I'll try to stop being funny...



The recipe I used was adapted from Dorie Greenspans Paris Sweets. I halved the recipe and rather than using Dorie's recipe for Coffee Buttercream, I made my own. This is the halved recipe together with my coffee buttercream

Joconde
- 2 tbsps (30g) unsalted butter, melted
- 3 large egg whites, at room temperature
- 1 tbsps granulated sugar
- 1 cups (110) almond flour or finely ground almonds
- 1 cups icing sugar, sifted
- 3 large eggs
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
Preheat the oven to 425F (220C). Line jelly-roll pan with parchment paper, and coat parchment with 1 tbsp of the melted butter.
In a clean, dry mixer bowl fitted with the whisk attachment, whip on low speed until the whites become foamy, then whip on medium-high speed until the whites reach soft peaks. Add granulated sugar, and whip on high speed until the whites are stiff and glossy.
In a separate mixer bowl fitted with the paddle attachment, beat almond flour, icing sugar, and eggs on medium speed for 3 minutes or until light and voluminous. Add flour and beat at low speed until it disappears. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold meringue into the almond mixture, then fold in the remaining melted butter until just combined. Spread mixture into pan and spread evenly.
Bake cake for 5 to 7 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from the pan and let cool to room temperature.

Coffee Syrup
- ¼ cup water
- 1/6 cup granulated sugar (half of 1/3)
- ¾ tbsps (7g) instant coffee powder
In a small saucepan, combine water, sugar and coffee powder, and bring to a boil, while stirring to dissolve ingredients. Remove from heat and allow syrup to cool.

Coffee Buttercream
- 3oz butter
- 2 tbsps instant coffee powder
- 2 tbsps (15g) boiling water
- 3 oz Icing Sugar

In small bowl, combine coffee powder and boiling water and stir until dissolved.
In a mixer bowl, beat butter and sugar till light and fluggy. Slowly add the coffee mixture while beating.

Ganache
- 4oz (120g) bittersweet chocolate (70% +), finely chopped
- ½ cup (60g) heavy cream

Put the chocolate in a medium bowl. In a saucepan, bring milk and cream to a boil, and pour over the chocolate. Let the chocolate melt for 30 seconds, then gently stir the mixture until smooth and fully combined.. Beat till thick

Assembly
On a cutting board, measure joconde into three.
Place one piece on cake pan and moisten with 3 tablespoons of coffee syrup. Use an offset spatula to evenly spread half of the buttercream over the joconde. Freeze the cake for 10 minutes to allow it to firm.
On top of the buttercream, place another sheet of joconde. Moisten with 3 tablespoons of coffee syrup and use and offset spatula to evenly spread the ganache/mousse over the joconde. Place the last joconde piece on top of the ganache, and moisten with the remaining coffee syrup. Freeze the cake for 10 minutes to allow it to firm.
Use an offset spatula to evenly spread the remaining buttercream over the joconde. Make sure the surface is very smooth and even. freeze the cake for 20 minutes.

Chocolate Glaze
- 4 tbsps (60g) unsalted butter
- 3oz bittersweet chocolate (70% +), finely chopped

Transfer the cake to a rack on a level surface.
Melt butter and chocolate over double boiler.
Working quickly, pour the glaze onto the cake and use an offset spatula to smooth the glaze evenly across the top, allowing the glaze to drip off the sides. If more than one minute has elapsed, do not return to fix any small imperfections, as the buttercream underneath the glaze may have melted, and smoothing the surface may mix the buttercream with the glaze. Refrigerate the cake for about 30 minutes, or until the glaze has hardened.

I decided to cover the tops and sides with chocolate to make it more decadent. I served this for dessert one night and our guests couldn't quite believe that it was home made.


I absolutely love this dessert and it's really not that difficult to make although there are quite a few steps to it. The Lovely Wife and the Kids loved it too. I much prefer the chocolate/coffee version to the "albino" version. The Opera Cake is truly a very spectacular and yummy dessert to serve as well as eat!