Exotic Orange Cake

[Abra]

At a Seattle-area gathering last night, FWED's contribution was an Exotic Orange Cake he learned at the World Pastry Competition. I have to say that it was one of the best desserts I've ever had in my mouth. FWED, please post the recipe so I, and all of our fellow cake-lovers can try it and swoon!

[FWED]

I would be glad to post the recipe. I wish I could say it was an old family recipe but it isn't and I am indebted to Laurent Branlard for giving it to us at the World Pastry Forum.

Exotic Orange Cake

There are five components to this cake and they are: An orange vanilla bavaroise, a vanilla cremeux, a honey cake layer, a passion fruit gelee, and a white chocolate spray.

Honey Cake.

60 gm of sugar

60 gm of honey

60 gm of egg whites

115 gm of almond flour

90 gm of egg yolks

210 gm of egg whites

75 gm of sugar

95 gm of cake flour

DIRECTIONS: Mix the sugar, honey, 1st amount of egg whites and the almond flour until smooth, then gradually and the yolks. Using the 2nd amount of whites and sugar make a meringue and fold in along with the flour into the batter. The cake can be baked in a thin layer in a sheet pan or piped into 8inch rounds on a sheet pan. You will have to end up with 2 thin (1/4 to 3/8 inch thick) 8 inch disks. Bake at about 350 until done. Set aside

Orange vanilla bavaroise.

330 gm whole milk

66 gm of sugar

66 gm of egg yolks

seeds from 1 vanilla bean

10 gm of gelatin

400 gm of whipped cream

orange zest of 3 oranges

DIRECTIONS: Bring milk to a boil, add orange zest and steep for 15 minutes, strain. Using the milk make a creme anglase with the egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla. Add the melted gelatin, and cool. When cool fold in the whipped cream. Set aside

Vanilla cremeux.

60 gm of sugar for a dry caramel

360 gm of heavy cream (HOT)

seed from 4 vanilla beans

120 gm yolks

3 gm of gelatin

DIRECTIONS: Caramelize the sugar, add vanilla seeds, and hot heavy cream. Cool slightly and add to the egg yolks and finish with the gelatin. Cool and set aside.

Passion fruit gelee

150 gm of passion fruit puree

350 gm of mango puree

25 gm of glucose

seeds of 1 vanilla bean

75 gm of sugar

10 gm of gelatin

DIRECTIONS: Heat puree's, glucose, vanilla , and sugar until hot. Mixture should be uniform and sugar dissolved. Add melted gelatin and set aside.

ASSEMBLY: Cover one end of a 9 X 2 inch cake ring with plastic wrap and secure with rubber bands. Place on a sheet pan wrapped side down. (This cake is assembled up side down.) Make a 8 in by 3/8 inch solid mold. ( I used 2 sheets of foam board cut into 8 inch circles taped together and covered with plastic wrap) This solid mold is centered inside the cake ring on top of the plastic wrap. It will create a space (to be filled later with gelee) in the top of the cake. Place a layer of bavaroise around the solid mold, and up the sides of the ring to the top and a thin layer over the solid mold. Position a layer of cake on top of the bavaroise. Place a thick layer of the vanilla cremeux on top of the cake. Cover the cremeux with a layer of bavaroise and another layer of cake. By this time the last layer of cake should be at the top of the ring. Finish off the top layer around the edge with bavarois. Make sure it is level and flat as this will become the bottom of the cake. Freeze until solid. When frozen ( about 4 hours) warm ring and remove. Turn up side down. The solid mold is now on top. Carefully remove the mold. Spray the outside of the cake with white chocolate. Fill the space in the top of the cake with the passion fruit gelee and chill. Refrigerate until serving.

There is a picture of this cake (its on the far left in a square form) in the "World Pastry Forum Recap" under the section entitled "Entremet".

Edited August 9, 2004 by FWED (log)

[duckduck]

That's the one I remember blowing me away when we tasted them in class and the one I keep thinking about trying now that I'm home. I'll have to give it a shot.

[Abra]

Holy cow! Uhh, would you just come over once a week and make one for me? Seriously, please tell us how long this project took you, and whether you were able to spread the prep over several days.

I'm not that good at eyeballing metrics - would a half sheet work for that amount of batter?

And please, for the record (not that I'm likely to be doing it in this lifetime) please talk some about the method of spraying the white chocolate, and any reasonable alternative for the spray-challenged.

[Tepee]

Just adding the link here, as I had some trouble locating the object of our drooling desire.

[FWED]

Here is the photo of the Exotic Orange Cake as it was before the dinner. I did this one in a round form, its a personal preference.

[smgarsh]

wow. thankyou very much for the recipe FWED.

I do have a couple of newbie questions. When you said

"60 gm of sugar for a dry caramel", do you mean just melt the sugar in a pan?

and what exactly is 25 gm of glucose? I know glucose is a sugar but where would I find this or can I make it myself?

thankyou

[nightscotsman]

and what exactly is 25 gm of glucose? I know glucose is a sugar but where would I find this or can I make it myself?

In most recipes you can safely replace glucose with corn syrup, and vice versa. The main difference is corn syrup has a slightly higher water content.

[maggiethecat]

I'm going to have to call in sick, take a day off , raise my baking bar and make this object of desire . Thank you for the recipe, and the photo; I might even dream about it tonight.

[FWED]

This is a wonderful cake and in reality doesn't take all that long to prepare and can certainly be done over a period of days before its needed. The cake actually consists of just a sponge, a Bavarian cream, a pastry cream, and a jelly top. It took me about 45 minutes to assemble the cake once the component's were made. Spraying it took a little longer since it was the first time that I had used the sprayer or done any chocolate spraying. Once it is sprayed and unfrozen and thawed however it should be eaten. Thats not usually a problem.

Abra:

Yes a 1/2 sheet pan is OK and there probably will be batter left over. As to spraying well I used a virgin Wagner Paint sprayer (49$ at Home Depot) and 1/2 lb of melted tempered white chocolate and 1/2 lb of melted cocoa butter and 9gm of titanium oxide. Other options to spraying would be to use thin squares or circles of white chocolate on the outside. You could even incorporate designs off of transfer sheets. Or you could leave the chocolate off all together although it does have a nice textural component.

Smgarsh:

Yes, I melted 60gm of sugar in a pan and when it reached the desired color I took it off the heat and added the hot cream and vanilla. As to glucose it is available at most cake decorating and candy supply shops. I understand it is available at some Micheal's craft stores. If you choose to use corn syrup you may have to increase the amount of gelatin to get the right consistency. You want a jelly that just holds its shape and isn't rubbery.

Edited August 11, 2004 by FWED (log)

[FoodMan]

I just printed the recipe for my review. I will hopefully and to the best of my humble abilities make this fabulous sounding and looking cake. I might even come close to the real thing. No doubt I will have several questions for you FEWD (if you do not mind) after I review the instructions.

Thanks again for posting this,

Elie

[DutchMuse]

Question from an amateur cook...why are the measurements in grams? I can use a conversion calculator for US measurements, but the decimal values is a bit confusing. What do the US based cooks do, or do you use a scale calibrated to grams?

[FoodMan]

Question from an amateur cook...why are the measurements in grams? I can use a conversion calculator for US measurements, but the decimal values is a bit confusing. What do the US based cooks do, or do you use a scale calibrated to grams?

Professional cake recipes use metric system, ands since this one is from the world pastry competition it makes sense to have it in metric. My scale has both Metric and English measurments so it is pretty simple to convert from one to the other.

Elie

[tejon]

Grams are a much smaller increment of measure than ounces, so measurement is more accurate. When I am making something where *just* the right weight is critical, I always measure by the gram (helps to have a digital scale that can display grams and ounces).

[Wendy DeBord]

Yes, I agree the decimals are really hard to work with. Instead use your calulator and multiply.

1 ounce equals 28.35 grams.

To convert grams into ounces, mulitply by 0.035 .

[Drewman]

Or you can go to:

http://www.onlineconversion.com/

It's easier than doing the math.

[Wendy DeBord]

Thank-you FWED for posting this recipe! I made it this past friday for my ala carte service.

I LOVED the caramel layer and will be using that in many other recipes! The honey cake didn't really taste like honey-but it's a darn nice soft cake and I'll use that in the future too.

All the recipes worked great, no problems. In the future, I probably would double the outter mousse-the orange and vanilla one because it ran pretty tight........and I think I'd put something crunchie on the bottom for more texture........both small changes.....otherwise it's a very nice torte.

Thank-you again for sharing!!

[FWED]

Thanks actually should go to Laurent Branlard. He is the PC that gave us the recipe at the 2004 World Pastry Forum. He also was a member of the 2002 Team USA World Pastry Championship Team. Now you can see why that US team was noted for its wonderful flavors.

[Abra]

I'm still trying to figure out when I'll have a whole day to try that recipe, and who I can invite over to help eat it all up. It was way too good to have around the house.

[Wendy DeBord]

Abra you don't have to make every component in the torte all on the same day.........even though it does sort of read that way.

You can break this recipe down into sections/components and freeze each, then assemble it. Often on the job I'm freezing components ignoring or re-working the recipe into my schedule. Freezing components along the way before assembling also gives you that clean layered looking inside your torte when you slice it. If you didn't freeze some items seperately they'd blend together as you carried them to the cooler..........or you'd have to sit around all day waiting and watching until the first mousse has firmed up enough to begin the second mousse or component.

Example:

Make the cake in a 9" cake pan, unmold, cool, then- freeze it.

On another day, make the passionfruit mousse-freeze it in a 8" cake pan (or you can use the same 9" pan you baked your cake in). Once frozen you can umold it and place it back in the freezer (well wrapped).

Make the caramel mousse whenever-freeze it too in a 8"or 9" cake pan, unmold it too whenever you want.

Then assembly day. (Which involves a little bit of method changing-but no serious harm will be done.)(I'm still building my torte upside down in the pan, so the bottom when unmolded will become the top.)

Take the passion fruit mousse out of the freezer. If you froze it in a 9" cake pan you'll need to trim it 1" all the way around (with a knive), if it's in the 8" pan you don't need to trim it. Place that disk in the bottom of your 9" cake pan. (I don't have cake rings so I have to use my cake pans to assemble into) Set this back in your freezer while you:

Then make your vanilla/orange bavarain/mousse.

Take the pan out of the freezer and spread a layer of the vanilla/orange over the frozen passion fruit disk. Tap your pan on the counter lightly to release any air pockets making sure it fills in the 1" space between the pan and the passion fruit disk.

Then place your caramel disk ontop of that (trim if necessary).

Next, place more vanilla/orange on top of the caramel disk, again making sure it goes between the sides of the disk and the pan, tap again gently to release any air pockets.

Next, trim aprox. 1/2" of the sides of your cake, so when it's in the pan the sides of the cake won't touch the pan. Soak your defrosted cake with the soaking syrup. Place that on top of the previous layer.

Finish assembling by pouring the rest of vanilla-orange mousse ontop. There won't be much mousse left-over to do so (thats why I suggest making 2x the vanilla/orange mousse recipe per torte) it's a tight amount of mousse.

Then you freeze the whole torte again.......when solidly frozen, unmold it. Turn it right side up and spray it with the white chocolate (covering the center disk of passion fruit) and you have pretty much the same thing. The only difference is the center isn't recessed and later filled with the passion fruit so your top layer of passion fruit will be flush with the vanilla/orange mousse.

I hope that made sense and you were able to follow? The sprayed on white chocolate in my opinion is optional (I did, but probably wouldn't bother in the future). Flavor and texture wise it's more decorative then anything (I would have prefered the white chocolate on the bottom mixed into something crunchie like fellutine to support this mousse torte). I finished my torte by piping a whipped cream border on top and filling it with madarin oranges. I tasted this again today at lunch and I think the whipped cream and fruit added a nice contrast to this and helps you enjoy the orange contrast better then with-out the whipped cream.

[Abra]

That is fantastically helpful, Wendy, and when I make it I'll follow your instructions to the letter. All those freezing steps wouldn't have occurred to me, but now I see how helpful they would be, not only as far as timing, but to getting a clean-finished product. The chocolate spraying does daunt me, although it made a gorgeous cake when FWED did it.

What's fellutine?

[FoodMan]

Abra you don't have to make every component in the torte all on the same day.........even though it does sort of read that way.

You can break this recipe down into sections/components and freeze each, then assemble it. Often on the job I'm freezing components ignoring or re-working the recipe into my schedule. Freezing components along the way before assembling also gives you that clean layered looking inside your torte when you slice it. If you didn't freeze some items seperately they'd blend together as you carried them to the cooler..........or you'd have to sit around all day waiting and watching until the first mousse has firmed up enough to begin the second mousse or component.

Example:

Make the cake in a 9" cake pan, unmold, cool, then- freeze it.

On another day, make the passionfruit mousse-freeze it in a 8" cake pan (or you can use the same 9" pan you baked your cake in). Once frozen you can umold it and place it back in the freezer (well wrapped).

Make the caramel mousse whenever-freeze it too in a 8"or 9" cake pan, unmold it too whenever you want.

Then assembly day. (Which involves a little bit of method changing-but no serious harm will be done.)(I'm still building my torte upside down in the pan, so the bottom when unmolded will become the top.)

Take the passion fruit mousse out of the freezer. If you froze it in a 9" cake pan you'll need to trim it 1" all the way around (with a knive), if it's in the 8" pan you don't need to trim it. Place that disk in the bottom of your 9" cake pan. (I don't have cake rings so I have to use my cake pans to assemble into) Set this back in your freezer while you:

Then make your vanilla/orange bavarain/mousse.

Take the pan out of the freezer and spread a layer of the vanilla/orange over the frozen passion fruit disk. Tap your pan on the counter lightly to release any air pockets making sure it fills in the 1" space between the pan and the passion fruit disk.

Then place your caramel disk ontop of that (trim if necessary).

Next, place more vanilla/orange on top of the caramel disk, again making sure it goes between the sides of the disk and the pan, tap again gently to release any air pockets.

Next, trim aprox. 1/2" of the sides of your cake, so when it's in the pan the sides of the cake won't touch the pan. Soak your defrosted cake with the soaking syrup. Place that on top of the previous layer.

Finish assembling by pouring the rest of vanilla-orange mousse ontop. There won't be much mousse left-over to do so (thats why I suggest making 2x the vanilla/orange mousse recipe per torte) it's a tight amount of mousse.

Then you freeze the whole torte again.......when solidly frozen, unmold it. Turn it right side up and spray it with the white chocolate (covering the center disk of passion fruit) and you have pretty much the same thing. The only difference is the center isn't recessed and later filled with the passion fruit so your top layer of passion fruit will be flush with the vanilla/orange mousse.

I hope that made sense and you were able to follow? The sprayed on white chocolate in my opinion is optional (I did, but probably wouldn't bother in the future). Flavor and texture wise it's more decorative then anything (I would have prefered the white chocolate on the bottom mixed into something crunchie like fellutine to support this mousse torte). I finished my torte by piping a whipped cream border on top and filling it with madarin oranges. I tasted this again today at lunch and I think the whipped cream and fruit added a nice contrast to this and helps you enjoy the orange contrast better then with-out the whipped cream.

Thank you so much!!! I was also trying to find time to make this cake. Freeze mousse and caramel? I had no idea you can do that. I thought it might alter their taste/texture, but u are the expert so I will do that. This also really clarifies the solid mold thing from the original instructions.

Thanks again,

Elie

[FoodMan]

I do have a question about baking the cake, if I am only using one round cake pan, can I bake all the batter in the same one and slice the finished cake in half? Or should I divide the batter and bake each half individually?

Elie

[FistFullaRoux]

Instead of spraying the chocolate, would this work?

Build and freeze the whole thing, using an 8" round cutter to size it. Center the finished cake component in a 9" round container or pan or some kind, then pour tempered chocolate in the gap? Let it harden, then remove the mold. Similar effect, but without the power painter bit.

[FWED]

I would like to answer a few questions concerning the fabrication of this cake. I apologize if the original recipe seemed complex or that I didn't offer other ways of fabricating the components. I use an 8 X 2 inch cake ring or cake pan to make the components in and a 9 X 2 inch cake ring or cake pan to make the finished cake in. If you want to make a larger cake you will have to increase the recipes.

Yes FoodMan you can bake the cake in one pan and then split it. Watch the baking time so as not to over bake it. After splitting the cake you should have two 8 inch by 1/2 inch cake rounds. This cake can also be made by piping an 8 inch by 1/2 inch thick round on a parchment covered cookie sheet. As to the caramel. I make it and leave it in the refrigerator and then pipe it into the cake pan at the time I am putting the cake together. It's quite stiff but will not displace the orange mouse.

If you are going to make a 9 inch finished cake in steps, freezing components in between, you should end up with; two 8 inch by 1/2 inch honey cake rounds, one 8 inch by 1/2 inch thick passion fruit gelee (Jelly), and one 8 inch by 1/2 inch thick layer of frozen caramel. At this point you would make the orange Bavarian cream and assemble the cake. If the frozen layers are only 1/4 inch thick or you want to make a larger than 9 inch cake, then you might need more Bavarian cream than the recipe calls for. If you are making a 9 inch cake and all the components other than the orange Bavarian cream are 8 inches you won't have to trim anything.

The sprayed white chocolate is just a decoration and a finishing touch but it does supply some crunch when you bite into it. The chocolate must be tempered to provide the crunch though. If it isn't tempered then it will go very soft once the cake is taken out of the refer.

The original recipe does not call for any soaking syrup because Pastry Chef felt the honey cake was moist enough with out it and he wanted a little texture to offset the softness of the Bavarian cream.

Fist fulla Roux; the white chocolate was very thin and more of a crust, not a 1/4 or 1/2 inch thick coating. a thick coating might make it hard to cut and or eat the cake.

I hope these notes have provided some incite into the fabrication of the cake and you can always PM me for additional info.