The other days I have attended a family birthday where I was asked to do one of my delicious cakes. The instructions were simple: to be fresh, with berries, and low in sugar. The sugar part wasn't hard to do as I am a fan of low sugar desserts.
So, I thought that the perfect recipe would be a vanilla cake, with
cheese cream from the Red Velvet Cake, berries (as I was asked) and of
course, some delicious chocolate.
Ingredients:
Sponge cake:
- 4 egg yolks
- 4 egg whites
- 170g of sugar
- 230g all purpose flour
- 1 sachet of baking powder (8g)
- 1 sachet vanilla sugar (8g)
- 1 vanilla pod
Cheese Cream:
- 360 ml sweetened whip cream
- 250g Mascarpone cheese
- 250g Quark cheese
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 80g icing sugar
Syrup:
- 300 ml water
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Decoration:
- 300g dark chocolate (about 50% cocoa)
- 20 ml of milk
- different berries
Mix the egg yolks with 2/3 of the sugar and the vanilla sugar sachet until they become creamy, turn white and increases their volume. Add 2 or 3 tablespoons of boiled water while mixing them, to melt the sugar faster and make the mixture rise.
In a different bowl, mix the egg whites with the rest of the sugar like in a meringue. Again, you can add 1 or 2 tablespoons of boiled water to help melt the sugar faster.
Bring the two mixtures together and add the sifted flour, baking powder and the vanilla beans. Mix it well so that the flour incorporates into the mixture.
Coat the tray with baking sheet and pour the mixture in. Put the tray in the preheated oven and bake it for about 25 minutes at 180º C. Test it with the knife to see if it is ready (the knife has to come out clean), or just bake it until the top gets a golden-brown color.
Now you can take care of the cream that will be ready in minutes, which is perfect because it has to sit in the refrigerator to cool down to be easy to work with.
Mix in a bowl the Mascarpone and Quark cheese until you get a smooth paste. If you can't find Quark type cheese, you can use any other smooth cream cheese (which will be perfect as it is a little salty and it will make the filling taste even better). Add the icing sugar and the vanilla extract and mix it again to incorporate all in.
In a separate bowl whisk the whip cream. Combine it with the cheese cream, cover it with a plastic foil and put it in the refrigerator.
When the sponge cake cooled down, put it in the refrigerator for half an hour. This way it won't crumble when you cut the layers. Prepare the syrup on the stove and use it warm (or completely cold).
Take the cake out and cut it into as many layers as you wish, but just make sure they are not too thin or too thick. Use the cake tin ring to assemble the cake. Put inside the ring a layer of cake, pour syrup with the spoon until its as moist as you want it, add a layer of cream cheese and sprinkle over it strawberries cut in quarters and whole raspberries. Put another layer of cake, and repeat the procedure... syrup, cream, fruits.
You can use the top layer of the cake if its not too uneven, but turn it upside down, this way the layer will seem even. After you put the last cake layer, cover it with cream and place whole raspberries, one next to another, and whole strawberries (use small ones, slightly bigger than the raspberries). After you covered the entire cake, sprinkle some blueberries and redcurrants. Place the cake into the fridge for at least 1 hour, so the cream will set and not run once the ring will be taken off. Save some cream to put around the cake once the ring comes off.
Put the milk and chocolate in a pan and melt it over a low heat. Stir constantly so it doesn't burn. Once the chocolate seems to start melting, take the pan from the fire and continue stirring until is all melted.
Let it cool down a little and then spread it over a baking sheet in a thick layer. Take the cake out of the fridge, take the ring out and put the remaining cream all around. Place the baking sheet around the cake, with the chocolate facing the cake, brush some colorless gelatin over the top fruits so they won't oxidize, and put it back in the refrigerator. Leave it over night and take the sheet off the next day. Do it slowly and carefully to don't tear the chocolate coat which should remain sticked on the cake.
That's it. I know it sounds like a lot of hard work, but it's actually not that hard. The only problem would be that you can't have it in the same day.
If you want to ease things up a little, change the chocolate coat with chocolate cigarillos, which is way easier and you will be sure that nothing will go wrong with that
I hope that you enjoyed today's sweet tooth and maybe it will inspire you to create something easy, but which looks complicated, for your next event.
Bon Appétit!
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