If you have Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, maybe you've flipped by the photo of this cake and thought "gorgeous, I could never make that" as I have done so many times. But like everything else in this book, you (and I) can definitely make it.
Before we made the pineapple dacquoise for Tuesdays with Dorie, I had a very snobby attitude about white chocolate. It's not REAL chocolate, etc. But that dacquoise was so good that it started changing my mind about white chocolate, and then I saw this post on Paris Pâtisseries, and I realized that my snobbishness was not only unbecoming, but also factually incorrect.
This year has been the Year of Accepting I Don't LIKE Certain Things. This cake was the latest entrant into my list of things that I'm glad have fans, but which I no longer feel pangs of guilt for not having developed a liking of. It is a white layer cake with layers of chocolate mousse and white chocolate whipped cream. I mistakenly didn't buy enough white chocolate, so I decided not to stress about it and just left the sides of the cake bare.
If you're a fan of white chocolate and want to try this cake (you can find the recipe here), I have a few suggestions:
- The chocolate mousse is stabilized with corn starch and while that's great for creating a mousse that is stable when you slice the cake, it totally ruined the mouthfeel for me.
- Making the cake mocha would really perk it up. I would add 1-2 teaspoons of expresso powder to the butter when you're creaming it for a yummy coffee flavored layer cake.
- I left my cake layers in the oven a minute too long, and it was dry as a result. To help protect me if I were to do that again, I might swap out 1-2 tablespoons of oil for an equal amount of the butter as my friend Hanaa of Hanaa's Kitchen does.
- The reviews I read of this recipe indicated that there wasn't enough of the white chocolate whipped cream, so I would probably increase the recipe by half.
- Don't overbeat your whipping cream when making the white chocolate whipped cream. I stopped the mixer (I used my hand mixer so I wouldn't be tempted to walk away) when it barely held a peak and it was fine.
- Let the white chocolate cool completely before mixing in the whipped cream, and monitor the mixture carefully when mixing it. Again, no walking away.
- Make sure you cover your cake in the fridge. I was lazy and didn't, and the chocolate mousse CRACKED. Ugh.
In my goal to complete something, anything in my life, I am completing all the recipes in BFMHTY that were made before I joined the group or I skipped for one reason or another. Nancy at The Dogs Eat the Crumbs had the idea of posting our make ups in the weeks corresponding to the weeks the group originally made the recipe.
14 comments:
Amazing looking cake!
I keep trying it every so often, but I just don't like white chocolate very much. But I do want to try at least a small version of this cake. Even if I don't like it all that much, J will, since he does like chocolate in all its forms. =)
That's really pretty...I just love things that are layered as it always looks so exciting. Looks very elegant, too.
Your cake looks yummy. I could take or leave white chocolate, but Paul is a big fan.
Wow Leslie, you are the cake baking queen!
Good work.
I loved that dacquoise too! I missed this cake but as a white chocolate fan, I definitely want to try it. Yours look great, I love the bare sides :)
The cake certainly looks appealing and if you hadn't written about the mouth-feel for the mousse, I would have cheered on the mousse. I am not a white chocolate fan although, I do like the way it looks. Whatever you have said, if a slice of this cake was presented to me, I would have dug right in. You did a beautiful job.
You don't have to like everything! I totally learned that from TWD - with so many recipes, there will be some you don't enjoy. Josh thought it was strange that the new group only has two recipes per month, I may have to join you and Nancy in posting recipes I missed.
This cake has been on my todo list for quite some time. Your cake is really pretty. Too bad it was a bit dry. Could you have brushed a syrup on the cake layers? Definitely try the oil sub next time. I find that it works great every time.
Very pretty! I use white chocolate, but don't care for it. I agree with your cornstarch observation. I try to use it as a thickener, but the texture is off. I love this cake though!
I think that this cake looks amazing - because white chocolate is so sweet, it might have done your head in if the cake was smothered in it.
Cake looks just fine with frosting just on top. It IS the way to do it these days. Look at all those delicious layers.
MIne was good, but..... and I LIKE white chocolate.
this looks so cool! i have a few birthday cakes to make in the not to distant future, and i just might have to give this a try.
Put me in the no-white-chocolate camp, but I ended up liking this cake just fine. I might try making the frosting with milk chocolate + whipped cream sometime and seeing if it works. Good job, Leslie, you'll be done with the TWD recipes before you know it!
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