Opera Cake, in two acts

It never ceases to amaze me just how many things there are that makes me say, "I've always wanted to make that!" As much as I've slowly chipped away at that unwritten list over the years, I've resigned myself to the fact that I will never completely check off everything and be done. And that's not a bad thing. I still love a good project, gaining a new experience, learning new techniques, and savoring the satisfaction of creating something tasty that I can share with my family. 

Opera cake is one of those iconic French desserts that I've always wanted to make. Seven layers of alternating jocande, or almond sponge cake, with coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache, topped with a chocolate glaze - plus, a serious soaking in coffee syrup for the cake layers. Everything melds together for a delectable coffee-chocolate experience.

Maybe with a spurt of New Year energy for learning something new and making more time to do things I enjoy, I recently made not one but two Opera cakes! One of those is the classic version we can hardly resist from pastry shop display cases. Its delicate layers of flavor requires some planning and patience but it's nice sometimes to clear the decks and make time to focus on a (sweet) project or two. 

After so many years of wanting to make Opera cake, little did I know it would actually begin with a beautiful, albeit unconventional, layer-cake version I spotted in a gorgeous book I received at Christmas. 

It was the inspiration I needed to check Opera cake off my unwritten list and after making the layer cake rendition, with all its many steps, I had the confidence (and heightened curiosity) to tackle the classic. Both were delicious and well worth the effort.

Matcha-almond sponge layer cake *redo*

I hope you had a nice Father's Day weekend!  Ours flew by with the usual errands and to-do's.  The weather wasn't very cooperative at first but then the sun broke out yesterday, which I thought was very appropriate.  We enjoyed a nice, relaxing Father's Day, celebrating with family time and some treats.

I mentioned in my last post that when I asked my husband what type of dessert he'd like for Father's Day that he, surprisingly, picked the matcha-almond sponge layer cake that I attempted last month (after first reassuring me that I didn't have to make him anything but of course, I couldn't have that!).  I was a little taken aback by his choice but despite the mishaps I had, the essence of that cake really was very tasty and memorable.  I don't think my husband felt like he got enough of a taste last time to satisfy his craving and he'd been thinking about it.

So I went into the kitchen Saturday and had a little re-do of that recipe!  Mainly, I baked the matcha-almond sponge cake in a rectangular 9x13 inch pan instead of the larger 12x16 inch type sheet pan.  I simplified and streamlined the process a bit and things went according to plan.  Baking the cake in the smaller pan gave me the thicker layers I was looking for so that the cake wasn't invisible-thin and I could move and maneuver it a lot easier.  I sliced the baked sponge cake into just 3-pieces and stacked them with 2 layers of cocoa whipped cream in between.  This time we have 5 very-manageable layers instead of 15!

With the little changes and tweaks, these layer cakes were really easy and quick to put together (dishes and cleanup are a different story).  I literally made the batter and baked the cake in between cooking breakfast and prepping other things. So I call it a success, and I wanted to share this little re-do and my revamped version of this recipe. Now that I've got it figured out - in a way that works for me - I'm glad I'll be able to whip this dessert up any time someone has a craving for it.  

The cake layers are so moist and feather-light.  The mild and delicate flavor of the soft cake layers meld really well with the creamy filling, which adds some sweetness and a lot of flavor.  I'd say my husband has pretty good taste, and he heartily enjoyed his Father's Day treat.  And I'm so glad I did this re-make.  With the essence of this recipe worked out, I feel like there are opportunities to play with the filling. Sprinkle Bakes' suggestion of a creamy red bean filling sounds very enticing to me since the combination of green tea and azuki or red beans is a classic one in Asian desserts; however, my husband insists this is perfect just as it is!

Matcha-almond sponge (multi) layer cake

This is not a green tea crepe cake.  It kind of looks like it, though, doesn't it, with all those thin layers of cake?

When things don't go according to plan: Fifteen layers of super thin matcha-almond sponge cake and cocoa whipped cream

It is, in reality, what happened when I tried to make a matcha/green tea almond sponge layer cake but the cake turned out so thin I ended up doubling the stacks and making a 15-layer concoction instead!  It still only measured maybe a little over 3-inches tall with all those layers, by the way.

If you'd like a good laugh, I was aiming for this.  Sprinkle Bakes had a post on matcha cakes recently and at the end of it, she listed a few other matcha dessert recipes. The one for matcha-almond sponge layers really appealed to me and I thought I could tackle it (ha!).  But let me step back for a minute...do you visit Sprinkle Bakes? Heather is (literally) an artist, and a very nice person to boot.  When I first started this blog 4 years ago, she was one of the original baking blogs I started reading and I was so impressed by her work that I emailed her to tell her so (I'd never done anything like that before).  She replied with a very sweet and encouraging email, and I have continued to admire her creations.  To be honest, her desserts are totally out of my league and I essentially just gawk at her work.  It looks like I need to revert back to gawking...

There was a moment when I was making this cake...when I realized how thin my cake was and when bits of it were sticking to the parchment paper...that I considered just scrapping the whole thing.  I only considered it for a second though because my general motto in the kitchen is to keep going and make the most of it when things go wrong.  I hate to waste - both effort and ingredients - so I try to avoid it and frankly, I find that most missteps still turn out rather tasty, as it did in this case.

So I kept at it and decided to double-stack my layers.  I only ended up with the 3 slices of cake you see here.  Had I trimmed my cake a little better, I might have been able to squeeze 4 slices out of it.  Maybe...

And you know that general advice about never trying out a new recipe if you're having someone over?  Well, it's a very good thing I had only invited my sister (and brother in law) over!  I think of her when I think of green tea desserts.  When things were looking rough, I warned her before her arrival that my project had turned out a lot more challenging than I imagined.  But luckily, I can say that these slices of cake disappeared from the table very quickly.  Everyone enjoyed it!  The matcha-almond cake itself is super moist; the matcha powder gives the cake a great hue but the flavor of green tea is mild.  The cocoa whipped cream I slathered between the layers adds creaminess and of course, a chocolate flavor, which I love.

All in all, this was an interesting experience!  I'm glad I still got to serve something and it was actually quite tasty.  I honestly don't think my sister would have been the wiser had I served this and told her it was supposed to be this way, a torte of sorts. My husband wished we had more of it and I did too but I'm just glad it worked out in its own way and nothing was wasted.  I can only laugh and say that I'm glad I just do this for fun!

Hazelnut balls (mini hazelnut cakes with mocha buttercream)

Does anyone in the New York area remember Black Hound Bakery?  For years, there was a small shop in the mall near my house in New Jersey.  Even before we moved to the suburbs from Brooklyn, we would go to this mall and stop by this bakery.  I'd look at all the beautiful little cakes and chocolates on display.  It was a gem of a shop and after looking around, I'd inevitably go for one of their hazelnut balls and a fizzy lemonade.  I was pretty hooked on both those things.

My version of Black Hound Bakery's hazelnut balls: a hazelnut cake, filled and covered with mocha buttercream and coated with toasted hazelnuts

After a while, Black Hound moved from their little shop at the mall to a bigger store in the same mall.  It was nice for a while...but then it closed down!  I was too busy with a young child to think too much about it but I have to tell you, I could never forget those hazelnut balls, or the fizzy lemonades either for that matter.

When that shop at the mall closed, there was still a Black Hound in New York City; my sister and brother-in-law were likewise fans of the bakery and their hazelnut balls, and I knew my brother-in-law visited the shop sometimes to bring treats home.  But sadly, it looks like Black Hound is gone now, closing its NYC bakery about a year ago. 

The actual hazelnut balls these are modeled after were probably slightly taller and a little less wide

Now, the good news is we can have hazelnut balls again because I'm thrilled to say the ones I made at home tasted so very similar!  [If interested, there are some photos of Black Hound's cakes, including the hazelnut balls, on google image.]

It all started when I made that pistachio-orange-chocolate cake recently.  It turned out so delicious and I kept saying to myself (as well as to my husband, and anybody else willing to listen...) that its texture - a sponge cake packed with nuts - reminded me of Black Hound's hazelnut balls. I thought I could substitute the pistachios with hazelnuts and play around with it a bit. 

Black Hound used to display their hazelnut balls (as well as snow balls, mud balls, and checker ball) on a glass cake stand on their counter

So that's just what I did!  I used that pistachio cake recipe and turned it into a hazelnut cake.  To mimic the snowball size of the cakes, I baked them in small paper muffin molds (I ordered these via amazon).  I was so sure that the cakes were filled and coated with coffee buttercream but looking at images online, I read that it was actually a mocha buttercream!  So I added a little cocoa powder to a coffee buttercream.  A small amount of Dutch-processed cocoa turned my buttercream a darker color than the original, which was more beige/light-coffee colored.  Slathered with plenty of toasted ground hazelnuts, it is all about the hazelnut flavor but you can taste the note of coffee in the background from the frosting.

My taste-testers - hazelnut ball "experts" including my husband, my sister, my brother-in-law - and I were so happy to relive our Black Hound days.  I got thumbs-up by all (even the little guy, who is coming around again to nuts) and was even told by my very biased crew that they preferred my version because the buttercream was "less buttery".  That may be a questionable compliment, I know, but what they meant was the home version had a balanced amount of buttercream, not too much.  If I had to guess, I'd think Black Hound used a swiss meringue buttercream, making it creamier than the simple American one I used.  I'm sure many people would prefer more buttercream and a more buttery one at that so it's all subjective.  All I can say is this totally worked for us and it was so nice to relive an old favorite and a lovely taste memory.

We had coffee with our hazelnut balls...all I was missing was the fizzy lemonade!

Vanilla layer cake with chocolate buttercream frosting

Let's start the week off with cake, shall we?  At least we'll kick it off by looking at cake.  That's really all I did because I made this vanilla layer cake with chocolate buttercream for my son's school fair this weekend.  

The cake is a double recipe of the Hummingbird Bakery's vanilla cupcakes.  Last time I made them, I was impressed by their flavor as well as moist and fluffy texture using a relatively small amount of butter (3 tablespoons for a dozen cupcakes).  It's an easy, tasty vanilla cake recipe that I was happy to whip up again.

I thought I'd pair the vanilla cake with an easy chocolate buttercream.  You can't go wrong covering all the bases with both chocolate and vanilla, right?  

Once again, making this cake reminded me that frosting/decorating layer cakes is not my thing.  I had some vague notion to pipe something on top of the cake but it just didn't work out.  I think it took me longer to figure out (more like "fix") the decoration (if you can call it that!) than to make and bake the cake layers.  In any case, I believe this is the time when we bring out words like "rustic" and "homemade" to describe the effort.  Regardless of how a cake ends up looking, there's still always something special and rewarding about creating a homemade one from scratch.

I had to sneak off a bit of the batter and make an extra cupcake (okay, two cupcakes) for my fellas.  That way, we get to taste test and make sure everything is alright.

Have a great week ahead!

Chocolate raspberry layer cake

Today, let's step into the world of sweets in a more serious way.  I know no better way to do that than with chocolate cake.  I may have been a purist in the past; by that, I mean I never wanted to mix my chocolate desserts with fruit.  But lately, I'd been craving the combination of chocolate and raspberries.  This chocolate raspberry layer cake was my way of fixing that craving.

This 6-inch cake is a pretty straightforward one.  There are two layers of moist chocolate cake (that's prepared without even using the mixer), joined together with seedless raspberry jam and dark chocolate ganache.  I simplified the recipe I worked off of and the cake came together as I ran errands and went about my day.  

Dark chocolate ganache, seedless raspberry jam and fresh raspberries for the cake

The whole cake is lovingly covered with chocolate ganache and simply garnished with a handful of fresh raspberries on top.  This cake definitely satisfied my chocolate-raspberry craving (and we know that cravings must be addressed eventually).  It's not complicated at all but I have to say that I'm always a little amazed when a cake comes together and that I made it from scratch, as simple as it might be.

There's seedless raspberry jam with ganache in the center and top layer of the cake

And a cake is just what I wanted to post here today because it's the 3rd anniversary of this little bumbling blog!  It's funny because for the first blog anniversary, I made a chocolate-hazelnut cake; the next year, it was another chocolate-hazelnut concoction - and both involved meringue!  Noticing the pattern after the fact, I decided to take a break from hazelnuts this year.  But, of course...it still had to be chocolate!

I almost can't believe I'm still chugging along after three years.  I have a lot of fun making the food and treats, then putting these posts together to share and stow away here.  It still feels like a little food diary of sorts but the chance to interact a little, and to learn from others who love food as much as I do, has been a huge perk.  This little blog continues to motivate me to try new things in the kitchen and I love all the learning that naturally happens. 

Thank you for spending a few minutes here sometimes.  I wish I could sit down and eat a slice of cake with many of you.