Chocolate Festival @ Obidos, Portugal

[filipe]

As not to duplicate posts, here is the link to my original post on this subject (which I think could be of common interest to the P&B forums)

[filipe]

Now some help/tips/suggestions...

I've been selected as one of the 10 finalists for the International Chocolate Recipes contest this festival helds. I've entried a recipe of a cold chocolate/green tea and wasabi cake.

It's a layered cake, with a base of cocoa chiffon, then chocolate mousse, then cocoa chiffon again, then matcha green tea mousse. All covered with a wasabi spiced ganache.

My question is :

We'll have a maximum of 2 hours to present/bake the recipe for the audience and juri. When I've send my recipe I told the organisation that would be a good idea to have the cocoa chiffon cake already baked, as that would take a lot of time both in the oven and then cooling.

Anyway, I guess that this won't be enough.

What do you think of having both the baked chiffon already done and cooled, just spending my presentation time for the mousses, all the assembling and making the ganache, and also having a previously 6-8 hour refrigerator cooled cake which I'll do the covering alive? Or do you think I'll should take the risk of covering a probably not properly set/cooled cake?

Thanks

Edited October 11, 2006 by filipe (log)

[miladyinsanity]

I'm hardly an expert, but given my...bad experiences with chiffons, I say bake it ahead.

[bripastryguy]

Filipe,

Plan A was your first instinct. I think covering your ass with a backup and finishing on site is the right way. Do the judges want to see all components made onsite?

The dessert sounds very do-able to me. Awesome combination I love it

[sanrensho]

What sort of mousses will you be making? Bavarois? Is there a freezer on site? I would think that would affect the time it takes for your mousse to set up and be ready for covering with ganache.

If I read your post correctly, you intend to assemble a cake for demonstration purposes, but have one that is already set up for pouring the final ganache. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Good luck!

[filipe]

Is there a freezer on site? I would think that would affect the time it takes for your mousse to set up and be ready for covering with ganache.

If I read your post correctly, you intend to assemble a cake for demonstration purposes, but have one that is already set up for pouring the final ganache. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Good luck!

←

That's it! And they do have a refrigerator on site, that's not the problem. The problem is with time. Let's look at it step by step :

Cocoa Chiffon - 10min + 1h30 to 2h baking + 20min cooling = 2h to 2h30

Chocolate mousse - 15 min

Green Tea Mousse - 25 min

Ganache - 5 min

Assembling - 15 min

Setting Up - 6 to 8 hours

So, since I'll have about 2 hours for the whole presentation, I guess the best steps on which I could cut on time is on baking the chiffon and on refrigerator time for set up.

That way it would make a total of 1h, which easily turn out being 2h LOL

[bripastryguy]

Have a few "desserts" done in stages

1-cocoa chiffon rounds bake off

2-cocoa chiffon with first layer finished

next and so on and so on......

Do like they do on TV , by the magic of television...then you pull out stage 2, make stage 3 and then pull finished stage 3......

Its not a competition its a demonstration. Only clear explanations are necessary for proper chilling, handling and ultimately presenting

[filipe]

Back on this topic again...

I need one more tip from you egullet friends...

(and by the way, its a competition, not just a demonstration)

I'm confident about the final taste and texture. I can say I'm also confident about the final look : one round ganache-covered cake. But I need that "magic touch" which will turn people's "Oh, it's very nice!" to a "WOW, It's awesome!"

This is a chocolate recipe competition, open to amateurs as myself. This is not a professional one, although the juri members are all pastry/chocolate professionals.

So, I'm a little confused about what to do with this cake's decoration. I personally don't like "baroque" look-alike cakes. I'm into a more minimalist look. I thought on doing 3 or 4 chocolate leafs and dust them with some matcha green tea... But I don't know... Any ideas?

[filipe]

Unexpectly I've won the 1st prize. My competition demonstration didn't went on very well, because the cake wasn´t properly set to be covered with the wasabi ganache (only 20 min in the freeze....) but this turn it went ok, I've made one in advance, which had 3 hours in the freeze by the time it had to be covered.

I'm very happy and glad with it.

For today's demonstration I've made two different size cakes, one "family-size" and one single. I've used yokan jelly for the decoration

For the single one i've used these chocolate-silver dragees, creating this "necklace" effect, which I think owrks nice over the mirror plate I've served it

[Sebastian]

Congrats mate!

[sanrensho]

Congrats, filipe! I suspected you would come out with the top prize, and the desert looks great.

[Swisskaese]

Woo hoo Filipe! That is great. What was the prize?

Edited November 15, 2006 by Swisskaese (log)

[filipe]

Woo hoo Filipe! That is great. What was the prize?

←

The prize was merely symbolic, it was that ceramic piece which is between the two cakes on my 1st photo.

If I were not portuguese I would have earned my travel & accomodation expenses... hope some egulleters will apply for this competition next year, at least you'll get a chance to travel for free and participate at this very nice event. There were contestants from Alaska, Poland, Austria, Germany, Croatia, Italy, etc...

Edited November 15, 2006 by filipe (log)