Oh crumbs!

Friday was another day of cake making, however this time we got a hearty workout as we turned to mechanical aeration. The cake of the hour was the Alhambra cake. This is a recipe specific to LCB, and is a take on the protected recipe of the Sachertorte. It is very rich, very moist, very chocolaty and very very tasty. Alhambra consists of - a chocolate and hazlenut sponge, baked and brushed in a coffee and rum soaking syrup, filled with a rich chocolate ganache, covered in a layer of ganache, covered again in a chocolate glaze, piped with the word 'Alhambra' and decorated with marzipan roses. Basically its not a last minute jobby. But this doesnt mean the chef didnt manage to make it look like it was. In demo I was, yet again, slightly astounded by the skills on show. Especially the perfectly smooth glossy finish (you will see why later). I think I'll let the cake speak for itself.

In class there was a lot of chocolate, which for me means a lot of mess. The cake itself was quite fun to make. First off we made our batter. To get the necesary aeration we made it in three parts, dry ingredients, creamed 'wet' ingredients and a french meringue and gently folded them together, trying to avoid losing the air we'd spent 10 minutes whipping into our meringue. As they baked we made the rest of our components, ready to finish off. It is the finishing off that caused me problems. Specifically the chocolate glaze. In demo chef poured hers over her ganache covered cake and it settled in a perfect glossy coat. Mine chose to be bubbly, uneven and a bit dull. Not good. I hasten to say the picture has actually made it look worse than it was, even so I think my report card would be saying 'must try harder'. Despite this the cake still tasted too good to last very long and I ended up serving it over the bar at work when customers spied it lurking in the back.  

Bubble trouble

My rose (well okay then, carnation)