To start off with, I got out and weighed/measured all of the ingredients for all of the various components of this cake. Many of them needed to either thaw or come to room temperature, so I figured getting everything set out at once was the easiest way to do things.

Genoise Ingredients

Curd Ingredients

Syrup Ingredients

Custard and Buttercream Ingredients

Whew! That’s a lot of bowls! Time to start consolidating some of those things.

Whisk together the butter, egg yolks, and sugar for the curd.

Butter, sugar, egg yolk for passion fruit curd

Add most of the passion fruit purée, and cook slowly over medium-low heat.

Cooked Passion Fruit Curd

When it’s done, pour it through a strainer into a bowl waiting with the remaining passion fruit purée for the curd component, and mix together gently. Let that cool, then refrigerate for a few hours.

Now, make the génoise part, since that’s another component that has some “wait” time built into it. Heat the eggs and sugar over a double boiler.

Eggs and sugar for genoise

Then beat the snot out of them, and watch them transform into a white cloud of deliciousness.

Beating the eggs into magical foam.

Mixing egg foam with buerre noisette and vanilla

After mixing some of the egg foam into the beurre noisette mixture, fold in the wondra flour in two batches, then mix back in the egg that you mixed with the butter, then spread in the prepared pan.

Ready for the oven

While that’s baking, go load the dishwasher. You’re probably getting close to a full load by now. You can also take this time to make the passion fruit syrup, which is good timing, because it’s another thing that needs to cool before it can be used. No pictures, because it wasn’t very photogenic. Next, go melt your white chocolate and butter, for the buttercream, which will also need time to cool.

Melting white chocolate and butter

When your chocolate and butter starts separating and curdling and generally looking disastrous, don’t panic. Whisk it back together, and you’ll be fine.

Rescued from curdling

Then whisk in the egg. Discover, like Jenn, that it’s already over 140 degrees, but decide to cook it just a little extra just in case.

Completed White Chocolate Custard

I’m not sure this is something I’d ever want to eat on its own as a custard, but it sure works well with the cream cheese in a buttercream.

Butter and Cream Cheese, ready for the custard

Gradually (I used about 3 additions), beat the custard into the butter and cream cheese (and a half tablespoon of sour cream — wth?).

Now, clean up everything else, and take stock of what you’ve got. You should have:

1. passion fruit curd
2. génoise
3. passion fruit syrup
4. white chocolate/cream cheese buttercream (there’s some fancy name for this in the book, but I don’t remember what it is)

All 4 components, ready for assembly

Got it all? Ok, now it’s deconstruction and assembly time. Split the génoise in half, horizontally, then syrup whatever side is currently facing you. Now flip it onto a plate. Syrup the other side of that layer. Add some of the passion fruit curd, and syrup the up-side of the remaining layer.

Syruped and curd-ed cake layer

Put the second layer on top of the curd, syruped side down, and syrup the top (which was probably originally the bottom of the cake).

Ready for Frosting

Now, frost the cake, as messily as possible, if you want to be like me.

Buttercreamed

Then, stash that in the fridge to firm up a bit, so you can swirl in the remaining passion fruit curd. Or, you can be like me and completely forget about it until it’s just about rock hard, and then when you go to swirl in the curd, it just sits on top like a puddle. Oh well! Hopefully, it will taste good!

Curded!

Whew! Quite an afternoon in the kitchen. I plan to take this cake into work tomorrow, so we’ll find out how it tastes, then.

Eggs, clarified butter, vanilla, sugar, flour, espresso powder, and a prepared pan. The eggs are from my aunt’s hens. I love baking with these!

Mise en Place

I find it funny how the cakes I enjoy putting together the most, I inevitably forget to photograph as I’m making them. It just comes together, and before I know it, it’s in the oven and I realize I forgot to take any pictures. Oh well.

Baked Génoise

I did the actual baking on Thursday night, then wrapped the cake up, and saved the syruping and frosting for Friday night, knowing we were having company on Saturday. Since Rose always recommends composing a génoise a day in advance, that’s what I did.

For the syrup, I used a Bolivar, a coffee liqueur from a local producer, rather than going for the Kahlua brand name. We went on a tour of the Kittling Ridge facility down on the Niagara peninsula last summer, and even though it’s a big company that ships all over the world, I still like buying “local” if I can. Yes, I know the coffee isn’t local, but I don’t think you can grow coffee in Canada. We do buy our (er.. Jay’s) coffee from the Baden Coffee Company, which roasts their blends on premises, about 2 km from our house, so that should count for something!

Finished Cake

I ended up using Lindt 50% chocolate for the ganache. I figured even though the recipe called for 53%, that extra 3% less might make the cake less bitter, which as far as I’m concerned is always a plus when coffee gets involved. We served it to a few of our guests Saturday night, and those that like coffee loved it. Those that didn’t seemed to think it was ok. I actually really enjoyed it myself. I guess if you put enough sugar and chocolate in anything I can probably be convinced to get on board!

Pretty little hearts!

It’s not as pretty as Hanaâ’s decorations for her and Marie’s cake, but I thought the way the light played on my cake dome was kind of cute here. I took the shot before cleaning the dome’s exterior thoroughly, so it’s a bit hazy, but after I polished it, it didn’t have quite the same effect.

Sevilles, from Sacramento

When I made the cake for my friend, I used a combination of a bunch of different types of oranges, hoping the variety would make up for the lack of whatever it was that made Sevilles unique. Now I know better. There’s really nothing like these tart little guys.

For this cake, you start by heating up the eggs & sugar in a double boiler, then beating the snot out of them.

Starting to lighten in colour

The mixture turns beautifully light and fluffy within a few short minutes.

So light and fluffy!

Gently fold in your flour, and bake. I doubled the cake and tripled the curd when I made it last fall, so I could have three layers of curd rather than just one.

Beautifully risen, flat, level cakes

Last week, I also ended up doubling the cake… but not for quite such a well thought out reason. The first batch of cake I made came out so short that there was no way I was going to be able to split it in two! So, I baked a second one. This one, I let heat a bit longer, and I also beat it a bit longer than the previous one. The second one came out a whole lot better, but nowhere nearly as nice as the one I’d done previously. I really don’t know what happened. Beginner’s luck, the first time?

Denser cake on the right

Denser cake in the back

I ended up using both cakes instead of attempting to torte either of them. I don’t think anyone noticed other than me (and maybe hubby). I did sort of run out of ganache, but I think that was probably a good thing. The chocolate just didn’t do anything for me on this one, so the super thin layer was kind of nice. Making the ganache and the curd wasn’t too complicated, and I actually really enjoy the time spent alone at the stove waiting for the curd to “pool thickly”. I followed Rose’s recommendation and put the whole cake together on Saturday, then resisted the temptation to cut into it until Sunday. Light and moist!

Finished Cake February

For the one I made for my friend last fall, I didn’t place the oranges on until I got to their house for the party, so there are no pictures of that.

Finished Cake November

I didn’t taste much of the cake I made for my friend, but I remember thinking at the time that it wasn’t quite what I expected when I read Rose’s description comparing it to an orange sour ball candy. Of course, that’s because I didn’t have the sevilles at the time, and I had just used concentrated juice from various sweet oranges. With the sevilles, this really does taste like an orange candy. I’d really like to try it with a really rich vanilla buttercream, because I think it would taste something like a creamsicle, which I absolutely love. I’ll have to keep my eye out for Sevilles, now that this is supposed to be the season.

Mmmm!

As always, the cake disappeared quickly at work. Programmers are like vultures, when it comes to free food. This past weekend I made up a bunch of cupcakes to use up an accumulation of frostings in my freezer, and they were gone within 20 minutes today. Vultures, I tell you! Our buildmaster said as he was wandering away, cupcake in hand, “you should put rat poison in these one of these days”. I keep having people ask when I’m going to open a bakery, and my answer’s always the same: “As soon as I can afford to.”

That reminds me, I’ve been meaning to post my response to the thread “Why real baking?” that I noticed on the forums at Rose’s website. My mother taught me and my sister fractions through baking, at a very young age. She had a degree in home ec, and was a math teacher for a time before I came along. It’s always been a dream of mine to bake for a living. I think my mother tried her hardest to squash that dream, along with the dream of being a hairdresser (not sure what I was thinking there), by making me do all of the baking in the house, as well as having to cut her hair regularly. In grade 7 (age 12), I did a science fair project on honey versus sugar as sweeteners in cookies. My next year’s project was on different leavening agents. For a while there, I figured I was going to become a food scientist. (Un?)fortunately, I took a computer programming course in high school and got hooked on that instead. I think my mother was quite relieved. My Dad’s a civil engineering professor, and my sister’s ‘known’ she was going to be a “CivE” since she was about 4, so Mom had big hopes for me, too. She did manage to rid me of my ridiculous career choice of hairdresser, but I still harbour a not-so-secret desire to have a bakery someday. Maybe a bakery/tea shop.