Friday- Opera Cake..finally..

"Opera Cake is a type of French cake. It is made with layers of almond sponge cake (known as Joconde in French) soaked in coffee syrup, layered with ganache and coffeebuttercream, and covered in a chocolate glaze. According to Larousse Gastronomique "Opéra gateau is an elaborate almond sponge cake with a coffee and chocolate filling and icing."The cake was popularized by the French pâtisserie house Dalloyau." -Wikipedia

It took me forever to cut this cake into a diamond shape slice. Almost a diamond perhaps. {Phew} The most forever about it was making the cake itself actually. Yerp..I did it..I can finally crossed opera cake from my baking list..Hip2x hurray for me..wuhoooooo... *cheeky proud grin*

I whipped the mocha buttercream on Thursday, and thought of assembling the cake on Friday- the same date as the royal wedding day. It would be great to have a special delicacy to mark the royal wedding ceremony rite.. since it was called the wedding of the year, of the century, of a lifetime, blah blah.. But it didn't happened..err my cake I mean.. =/ You wanna know why? You see..I was glued on TV from 3pm, and after 2 hours in front of the screen, I started to feel dizzy and felt like to throw out already. I knew the wedding service would start at 6, but me being me, over-excited blah blah, didn't want to miss watching every single second of the live telecast.. and by the time Will and Kate finally tied a knot, the headache was swirling all my head already. It was terrible. [I used to be a TV junkie during my teen years..what happened to that part of myself..hihi..] So the plan had to be postponed on the next day. Long story short, I created this marvelous cake on Monday. Period. ;p

Well, it's a rich cake, enough said. Layers of almond sponge cake, with mocha buttercream and chocolate ganache in between.. heaven! You could imagine the taste your self he he..  I made an 8x8 inch square cake, too big for our family to consume it at once. I halved it and keep one half in the fridge and the other half on the freezer. We shall finish it by this month he he.. 

Opera cake
{Recipe adapted from Bisous A Toi..Thanks K Rima!}

Ingredients

• 200g finely ground almond
• 100g caster sugar
• 6 eggs
• 50g butter, melted
• 60g all purpose flour
• 115g egg whites
• 55g confectioner sugar - i used caster sugar

For the Jaconde:

1. Preheat oven to 200C.. Prepare two pans (20 x 20 cm), greased and lined with baking paper.
2. In a large bowl combine ground almond, caster sugar and 3 eggs, beat at high speed for 10 minutes, scraping often.
3. Add remaining eggs one at a time, continue to beat for another 10 minutes.
4. Stir in 4 tbsp of almond mixture into melted butter and mix till well combined, set aside.
5. Add sifted flour to the remaining almond mixture, mix well... put aside
6. In another bowl, beat egg whites til foamy, add sugar gradually and continue to beat until soft peaks formed.
7. Take 1/3 of egg white and pour into almond mixture and mix it gently.. pour back almond mixture into the remaining 2/3 egg white mixture and continue to fold in gently.. dont overmix or u might deflate ur egg white..
8. Divide and spread into prepared pans, bake both pans at once for 20 mins in 175C. Cool completely, remove from pans, discard paper and slice it into total 4 layers.

For Coffee Syrup:
100ml hot brewed espresso - you can of course use 15g of instant coffee with 100ml hot water
100g sugar

Mix all ingredients, stirring until sugar dissolves. Set aside.

For Mocha buttercream:
100g egg whites
200g sugar
300g unsalted butter - cubed and chilled and let it out once u start to whip ur egg white/sugar
1/2 tbsp mocha paste
1tsp coffee oil - u can use coffee essence/flavor if u cant find coffee oil

1. Using double boiler.. heat egg white and sugar till sugar dissolved - use ur thermometer ok.. heat till 65C..
2. Pour egg white mixture into ur mixing bowl and whisk using high speed till mixture turns glossy.. add in cubed butter one at a time and continue to beat till its slightly fluffy.. (buttercream texture)
3. Add in coffee oil, mocha paste and 50ml of coffee syrup into buttercream.. stir till well combined.. set aside

For Chocolate Ganache
200g dark chocolate compound
200g milk chocolate compound - I used a mixture of 70%, 64% and 55%)
75g unsalted butter
250 ml fresh cream - I used double cream

1. Chop the chocolate into small pieces.
2. Heat cream until warm. Remove from heat and pour it over chocolate.. let it sit for 5 mins and stir
3. Add in butter and continue to stir well again.
4. Put it aside till it thickens.
Assembling

There are various way to assemble Opera, you can find many on internet. Heres my version..

1.  Place one sheet of joconde upside down (top of the cake on bottomside).
2.  Brush thoroughly with coffee syrup until moist.
3. Spread one part of coffee cream evenly over the cake.
4. Cover with another sheet of joconde, always upside down.
5. Brush thoroughly with coffee syrup until moist
6. Cover with thick ganache and cover with another sheet of joconde.
7. Repeat above steps until all joconde, coffee cream and ganache are stacked completely. Chill for 10 minutes.
8. Double boil remaining ganache over low heat just until simmer, pour evenly on the top. Chill for another 30mins.
9. Trim the sides thinly to remove excess cream & ganache to reveal the layers of art and delicacy.