a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: White Chocolate Patty Cake

Over the years, I must have seen the Baking with Julia TV episode where Marcel Desaulniers makes his White Chocolate Patty Cake a dozen times.  Normally, white chocolate doesn’t really float my boat, but for some reason, I could tell by watching the episode that this cake would be fabulous.  I’m so glad that we’ve finally gotten to this recipe– and that my decade-long cake daydreams came true!

The white chocolate here is melted into the cake batter– a whole 12 ounces of it.  Two layers of cake are dressed up with raspberry sauce (made from pureed frozen berries) and fresh raspberries.  I made this with the Fourth of July in mind, so I used a combo of blueberries and raspberries in the sauce and on top.  You know, for that whole red, white and blue effect.  I think blackberries would shine in this cake as well.  In addition to all that white chocolate, the cake also has lots of eggs, so the texture is luxe and velvety.  Snappy berry sauce keeps it from being to sweet.

The cake rises in the oven and then shrinks a bit as it cools. If you make the recipe (which you should!), you might be concerned that the layers look a little schlumpy.  Don’t worry because once it’s stacked and decorated with the sauce and berries, it looks like a million bucks.  The cake will slice neater after it’s been refrigerated for a bit and the sauce has time to firm up.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan (there’s a a video here of Chef Marcel making the cake with Julia). Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Cardinal Slice

Markus Farbinger’s take on Cardinal Slice is the first I’d heard of this cake.  Where have I been?  On the wrong side of the Atlantic, I guess.  It’s called kardinalschnitte in Austria, where it’s a classic (and apparently ubiquitous— ha!) Viennese pastry.  Well, I didn’t need first-hand experience to know that I’d like to sink a fork into a cake made of ladyfingers and meringues sandwiched with coffee whipped cream.  If I could successfully pull it off, that is.

When was poking around the interwebs for info on the Cardinal Slice, I came across Joe Pastry’s detailed posts on the subject.  Seems that in order to recreate a classic version, he started off with the BWJ one and then scrapped it for another because he couldn’t make it work.  Oh no– not promising!  The cake layers are alternating strips of meringue and ladyfinger batters baked side-by-side…two things that require very different baking times and temperatures.  The BWJ recipe bakes for a long time at a low temp, which cooks the meringue, but makes getting a puffed up ladyfinger tricky (I can only assume that Chef Markus has made this so many times in life that he just has the touch).  I didn’t want to abandon the BWJ recipe entirely here, so I decided to follow the BWJ ingredients and mixing techniques with the baking temperatures Joe Pastry recommends (essentially to start out in a hotter oven and then reduce the temperature halfway through).  I don’t think that my cake layers came out as poofy as either Markus’s or Joe’s, but my mixed up method seemed to work out OK.

The whipped cream filling is flavored with an intense syrup made from caramelized sugar and espresso called a couleur.  This syrup reminds me a lot of a French coffee extract called Trablit that we use to flavor buttercream at the restaurant.  It tastes so much better than instant espresso, but it’s pretty pricey and not so readily available for home use…I’m pleased to know I can make a very similar thing for the price of two shots of espresso from the coffee shop down the block.  I have plenty extra for my future coffee buttercream or whipped cream needs…or perhaps my coffee milk or milk shake needs…

The Cardinal Slice has a bit of a tiramsu thing going on with the flavors, but since the filling’s all cream with no yolks or mascarpone, it feels a lot lighter.  Like any other type of icebox cake, the cake layers soften further as the cream absorbs into them, and this needs about an hour’s rest before cutting into it.  I’d say the recipe instructions to eat the cake within four hours of assembly are probably ideal, although we did have a hunk left over that we ate the next day.  It was very smooshy at that point, but still tasty.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan (there’s a a video here of Chef Markus making the cake). Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Vanilla Chiffon Roll

I start this post with a warning:  after I made Mary Bergin’s Vanilla Chiffon Roll, I took a look in the sink and internally freaked out.  I think I used every bowl, whisk and spatula I own to make the cake and mousse filling, not to mention the food processor and all its bits and pieces.  Well, I was really glad that this cake was totally worth that mountain of dirty dishes I had to tackle!   And also that assembly was much easier than washing up.  The soft vanilla chiffon cake was really easy to roll around its delicious chocolate-walnut mousse filling.  I didn’t get any tears or cracks…just a little sticking, which was easily disguised with a dusting of cocoa and powdered sugar.

I made a half recipe of the cake in a quarter sheet pan.  I think it took a few minutes longer to fully bake than the time indicated for the full-sized cake, so go with your good judgment if it looks underdone.  I noticed when I watched the video that there was a lot of leftover mousse in Mary’s bowl after she filled her cake, so I decided that I’d just make a third of the mousse recipe (I keep typing “mouse” BTW).  The full cake supposedly yields six servings…if you’re feeding giants…I easily cut six slices from my smaller cake.  Once this roulade has had time to chill out in the fridge, it’s really divine, not to mention classy.  I loved the chocolate-walnut mousse (and was psyched to use my special black walnuts and fancy walnut oil for it).  If I had had any extra left, I most certainly would have polished it off with a spoon.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here, along with a video). Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!