A recent cake request brought me back to my roots in French pastry, a place I had not been in a while. And it was nice to be reminded of some of the cakes I first learned and loved. My first boss when I moved to Maryland, Jack had asked me to make him an Opera cake for his oldest sons engagement party. The Opera cake is a classic french cake developed by Gaston Lenotre and is seven layers of coffee and chocolate flavors. I learned to used a biscuit Joconde as the cake layers, along with mocha buttercream and ganache to assemble this cake.
The biscuit Joconde is a type of sponge cake made with almond flour. I use this recipe……
Biscuit Joconde
| Ingredients |
Whole |
Half |
Quarter |
| Almond Flour |
1000g |
500g |
250g |
| Sugar(a) |
750g |
375g |
187.5g |
| Whole eggs |
1200g |
600g |
300g |
| Yolks |
140g |
70g |
35g |
| Whites |
800g |
400g |
200g |
| Sugar(b) |
550g |
275g |
137.5g |
| Flour(sifted) |
300g |
150g |
75g |
| Butter(melted) |
200g |
100g |
50g |
Process
Beat together with a whip attachment the almond flour, sugar (a), whole eggs and egg yolks until a creamy lemon yellow color. Set aside. In another clean bowel with the whip attachment beat the whites until doubled in volume and gradually add the sugar (b). Fold the whites into the almond and egg mixture. Then fold the sifted flour into the mixture and lastly fold in the butter. Be gentle and do not deflate.
Bake at 375F. About 10-12 minutes until golden brown color and pulls away from sides of sheet pan.
Whole recipe yields 4 full size sheet pans or 8 half size sheet pans.
Half recipe yields 2 full size sheet pans or 4 half size sheet pans.
Quarter recipe yields 1 full size sheet pan or 2 half size sheet pans.
I made four 1/2 size sheet pans for the layers of the cake. Next I made a ganache from some great chocolate I bought online at chocosphere.com and some farm fresh heavy cream I got at the Amish market. I also got the eggs I used from the Amish market as well.
And I made a classic french butter cream with an Italian meringue base (the only kind of buttercream I ever use) and flavored it with some instant coffee and a bit of dark rum. For the assembly of this cake I soaked the Joconde layers with with a simple syrup flavored with more instant coffee flakes and dark rum. I started with a layer of cake, then mocha butter cream, then more cake, a layer of ganache, more cake, a layer of more mocha butter cream and ended with the last layer of cake. To finish the cake I glazed the entire assembled cake with more ganache and decorated appropriately.
I had a hankering for ramen, and I know it is not that great for you (so much salt and oil) but it dirt cheap a so filling! I wanted to try to be as healthy as I could be so I remembered an old trick my mother used which is to not use all the flavor packet, just a sprinkle… Expanding on that idea I eliminated the entire flavor packet and used some mild white miso paste I had in the fridge to flavor the cooking water. I also added some sliced scallions. The white miso paste is salty but very mild and full of flavor. It made the perfect mate to the ramen noodles. It got me thinking that the next time I make this I will be sure to add lots of veggies. I think carrots and bean sprouts would be great in this quick fix and super cheap dish.
