European Cakes & Tortes Weeks 4 & 5

For Week 4, we made the components for White Chocolate Mousse Cake w/Raspberry and the Fraisir Torte; and then we finished (as in, glazed and decorated) the Tortes that we made last week: the Whiskey Hazelnut Dome and the Chocolate Mint Cake.

Whiskey Hazelnut Dome. Nice sheen on the glaze...caramelized hazelnuts...chocolate plaques... I waited until the glaze set up a bit, so they won't slide off. The white specks on the chocolate are fleur de sel, an artisan sea salt hand-harvested from the top layers of salt pans. It has a characteristic crunch and its high mineral content gives it a clean, yet complex flavor. Due to its scarcity and the amount of labor involved in harvesting, these are one of the most expensive salts around. We sprinkled some on the chocolate plaques, and put them in layered with the mousse. And even though the recipe called for them, I totally regret using them at all. This salt supposedly pairs well with dark chocolate, but all it did was make the (otherwise heavenly) torte abominably salty. I had to perform a "surgery" when I took it home, which involved cutting out the salty interior and replacing it with a mixture of wafers and Nutella, which actually did the trick. I think it would've been better if the salt was used on the caramelized hazelnuts instead.

Chocolate Mint Mousse cake. There's a mint creme brulee insert in the cake. The refreshing mint balanced well with the richness of the chocolate mousse.

Then there was another problem: How to take these tortes home without melting them into oblivion in the summer heat. I put them back in the freezer until the very last minute, put them on a sheet cake board, and loaded them into my car (which was already scorchingly hot inside). I blasted the A/C all the way home, and managed to save them (well, they did melt a little).

For Week 5, we made the components for Palomo Torte and Rubies Torte, and finished the Fraisir Torte and White Chocolate Mousse Cake w/Raspberry.

Fraisir Torte has raspberry cream filling sandwiched inbetween pistachio spongecake layers, with fresh strawberries in the mousse. It is then topped with French buttercream and marzipan.

White Chocolate Mousse Cake w/Raspberry. Finished with raspberry gelee. I messed up on the amount of gelatin in the gelee and it ended up all weird-looking. Otherwise, the cake turned out very nicely.

The class on Week 5 felt extremely hectic, mostly due to the partner I worked with. She was quite slow, so I had to do most of the tasks to compensate. The quality of the people in the team definitely makes a lot of difference...