Week 14 Gâteaux

This was one fun day in class. We made 3 cakes and they were all very interesting to make. 

Lets start with the Tropical Gâteau. The base is made out of coconut dacquoise , don't ask me how to pronounce that word. The texture is a little like a meringue, soft on the inside and slightly crisp on the outside. It is made of icing sugar, egg white, almond meal and desiccated coconut. The batter was filled into a piping bag with a plain nozzle and we piped a disc slightly smaller than the size of the cake ring. 

Coconut Dacquiose

The sides of the gateaux were lined with the jaconde that were made last week. This tropical gateau had orange colour jaconde. Then we filled the mousse over the coconut dacquiose and then placed another layer of the coconut dacquiose over the mousse. Again another layer of mousse. Sounds confusing isn't it? 

Lined the sides with jaconde and base with coconut dacquiose

Pouring in the passionfruit mousse.

The last layer on the top was passionfruit jelly. The jelly sets really quick once it is poured on the cold mousse. 

Topped with passionfruit jelly glaze

Took the gateau home and decided to make it a little prettier by adding blueberries and some strawberries. I also dusted it with some icing sugar. 

Additional topping of blueberries and strawberries. 

I left the gateau out too long and it got a little soft. But I wanted to take a photo of the inside to see the layers. You can see the coconut dacquiose at the very bottom, the layers of mousse and then the top of jelly and fruits. 

The inside of the mousse

This following one is the highlight of the day. It's a chocolate mousse gateau. It is called the Belle Heléne. There is a layer of poached pears inside the gâteau. It gives it a nice texture to balance with the smooth mousse. 

Ah... as you can see, the sides of this gâteau is the jaconde from last week, we cut it into strips and lines the inside of the cake ring. Then the bottom layer of the gâteau is a flourless chocolate sponge disc. It is made of mainly eggs and sugar and some cocoa powder. 

There are 2 layers of mousse in this gâteau. It was originally a cinnamon mousse and chocolate mousse but we changed it to vanilla mousse instead of cinnamon. That is because I don't really like cinnamon. 

The best thing about this gâteau is that we used couverture chocolate for the mousse. The taste of the mousse is really good. It is true, if you want a cake to taste good, the ingredients has to be of good quality.

The chocolate jaconde that we made last week.

Belle Heléne Chocolate Mousse.

The chocolate mousse had such strong chocolate flavour that I could hardly taste the vanilla mousse. One good thing was that it was not too sweet. I really enjoyed making and eating this one. 

The inside of the gateau.

We have made Sacher Torte before in Stage 1 but this time we were given a different recipe. It turned out much smoother and moister than the one we did before. This one doesn't have breadcrumbs. The cake was cut in half and apricot jam was sandwiched inside and then a chocolate ganache was poured over it as glaze. The word "Sacher" was written by my teammate with melted chocolate. Then we placed it on top to set. 

Sacher Torte

The class ended rather late and everyone was so tired but I felt really happy because I learnt a lot and all the cakes turned out good. Let's hope Week 15 will be even better. We will be making cheesecakes. Yum!