My friend’s sister who is living in Paris for over 40 years, ordered me to make a cake for her family gathering in the weekend, she always prefers my cakes than in the store, but she told me just a day before and on top of that she still ordered some whole wheat breads for the dinner! I have no problem with the limited time until I found that my brand new German-manufactured induction hob suddenly didn’t work but luckily the service man arrived on time and fixed it within an hour.
Ok what we need to make a fabulous white chocolate coffee cake?
Step 1 Biscuit Joconde or Almond sponge cake
- Eggs 200 gr.
- Almod powder 100 gr.
- Sugar 50-60 gr.
- Pastry flour 40 gr.
- Butter 30 gr.
- White yolk 120 gr.
- Sugar for white yolk 40 gr.
Beat the eggs with sugar then add almond powder, flour, and melted butter. Beat the white yolk then add 40 gr. of sugar gradually and mix with the first mixture. Bake at 160-170oC for about 15 minutes.
With the above quantity, we are able to make two rectangular almond sponge cakes with the size of approx. 22 cm x 32 cm and the thickness of 0,4-0,5 cm.
To me the thinner the better but some time still depends on what I have in mind, what kind of cake I create, from time to time I do prefer a bit thicker.
Step 2 White chocolate coffee mousse
- White chocolate 50-70 gr. (depends on your taste)
- Whipping cream 70 gr.
- Coffee instant powder ( I used Davidoff fine aroma) 10-15 gr.
- Condensed milk 20-30 gr. (optional)
- Fresh milk 30 gr.
- Vanilla extract 4gr.
- Gelatine 4 gr.
- Whipped cream 300 gr. with 30-40 gr. of sugar
Melting white chocolate in hot whipping cream by bain marie . Dissolve Davidoff in warm fresh milk, add the condensed milk, to me the condensed milk enhances the coffee flavor, then add to the mixture of white chocolate, add the dehydrated and drained gelatine. I always love to add some coffee liquor but this time I skip it as many kids in the party. Pass the mixture through a sieve. When the mixture cooling down then fold the whipped cream with the mixture of white chocolate.
Step 3 Montage
Using the ring of Ø 18 cm, cut 4 slices of almond sponge cake, one layer of cake then one layer of white chocolate mousse, another slice of cake until the last one, on the top – the white chocolate coffee mousse.
I was about to do the ganache but when the service man came to fix my new induction hob and made a big mess in my “baking studio”, I really have no time so just quickly used little alphabets in chocolate I prepared before to decorate and shipped the cake over to my friend’s place! Later at night when the cake was served, people loved it – the cake moisture, the aroma of the coffee mixed with vanilla from Madagascar, and the alphabet in chocolate, everything!
Le petit renard 