Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Opera Gateau

This is the first official pro-like cake that I've made~ it's a layer cake ^^ I found out "gateau" means cake (thanks to Bobo) and Opera must mean... coffee.. haha coz its a coffee flavoured layer cake~

Layer cakes are really fun to make and they're not as hard as it looks! There are just different components. It may look like a lot of steps but YOU CAN DO IT :D


Finished product.. now to the recipe =P
 Sponge cake
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups (150g) almond meal
1 cup (160g) icing sugar
1/3 cup (50g) plain flour
25g unsalted butter, melted
4 egg whites 1 tbs caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 220oC. Grease and line 2 25cm x 30cm cake tins
2. Beat eggs, almond meal and sifted icing sugar in a small bowl with electric beater until creamy; beat in flour. Stir in butter.
3. Beat egg whites in small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form; add caster sugar, beating until sugar dissolves. Fold into almond mixture in 2 batches.
4. Divide mxture between pans. Bake around 7 minutes. Cool.

Coffee butter cream
1/4 cup (60ml) milk
1/4 cup (55g) brown sugar
2 tsp instant coffee granules
1 egg yolk
125g unsalted butter, softened

1. Stir milk, sugar and coffee in small saucepan until sugar dissolves
2. Whisk egg yolk in small bowl and gradually whisk in hot milk mixture.
3. Return custard to pan; stir over heat without boiling (~ 5 min or until thickened slightly)
4. Cool. Beat butter in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy; beat in custard.

Coffee syrup
1/3 cup (80ml) boiling water
2 tbs caster sugar
1 tbs instant coffee granules

1. Stir ingredients in small bowl till sugar and coffee dissolves.

Ganache
160g dark eating chocolate, chopped coarsely
1/3 cup (80ml) cream

1. Stir ingredients in small heatproof bowl over small saucepan of simmering water until smooth. Refrigerate until spreadable.

Glaze
50 g unsalted butter
75g dark eating chocolate

1. Stir ingredients in small heatproof bowl over small saucepan of simmering water until smooth. Use while warm.

Assembling the cake
1. Cut cake so that you can get 3 even pieces (there are 3 layers for this cake.. so cut a third off each cake so you are left with two 2/3 pieces and two 1/3 pieces if that makes sense =S)
2. Place one large sponge (the 2/3 one) on baking paper and brush with half of coffee syrup. Spread cake with half of butter cream; refrigerate for 10 minutes.

3. Place next cake layer on top (two pieces of 1/3) and brush with remaining coffee syrup. Spread with ganache and top with remaining cake; refrigerate 10 minutes.

4. SPread top of cake with remaining butter cream; refrigerate 3 hours.

5. Make glaze and spread evenly over cake. Refrigerate 30 minutes or until glaze has set.

TA DA!! Look at that awesome glaze dripping down.. and ganache oozing out.. mmm mm :)

1 comment:

  1. This looks so complicated !! But very awesome..would be a good one to start off doing with friends :) hope it tasted as nice as it looked!!*^^*

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