I had several people coming for a New Year’s Day dinner, and wanted to make something new to start the culinary year. After several minutes, no I confess hours, reading cookbooks, I settled on a recipe on the Tartelette blog. If you love pastry you must visit Helene’s blog. Not only is she a fantastic baker, her photography is absolutely mouthwatering, and her photos give me inspiration for the skills I aspire to reach.
The technique for this cake was to make dacquoise layers. They are basically merangue layers with almonds in them. I have made similar cookies before but this was my first cake type dacquoise. The server on her website seems to be down today, so I will revise and post a link later. You can just search under Tartelette and the blog usually comes up. It is called Raspberry Rose Bavarian Cream Cake on her blog.
I revised the recipe by using corn starch instead of flour so that the cake would be gluten free for Greg. I also did not have rose water so I used orange flower water instead. The layers turned out great, but perhaps a little soft. In reading other dacquoise recipes such as Julia Child, they did not have any starch in them, maybe that makes them more crunchy. Anyway, the really useful technique that I learned in making this cake was to make the raspeberry layer. You cook the frozen berries until they are dissolved, then add the gelatin, cool, and FREEZE them in a 1/4 sheet cookie pan. When you assemble the cake there is no mess with trying to spread out a thin layer, you just unwrap your thin little package of raspberry ice sheet and plunk it down on top of the dacquoise layer. When I have tried to spread soft gooey fillings on other cakes I often end up with crumbs and a messy layering, so this technique is really useful. I was concerned that there might be too much gelatin, but the cake tasted great, and the layers did not melt at all even when the cake had warmed to room temperature.
The bavarian cream recipe is delicious. It is a pastry cream that is cooked, gelatin added, cooled, then whipped cream is beaten and added to the mixture. The final cake was assembled and refrigerated for a few hours. I never got the lemon layer made, and really the cake was terrific, I’m not sure the lemon layer is needed, but it does add a warm sheen to the cake in the Tartelette Pictures. I have frozen the leftovers, so this is a cake you could make all ahead.
Anyway, My guests seemed to enjoy the cake, and this technique could be flavoured in many different ways, so this recipe is highly recommended, but does take a little time to make all the components. I think maybe the next one could be mango with orange slices on top, ot maybe strawberry and banana, the possibilities are endless!! Thanks to Helene from Tartelette for the recipe, and you must visit her blog. Also, here is another example of the cake on the blog Mad Baker http://www.madbaker.net/2009/11/mad-about-raspberry-rose-vanilla-cream-cake/
