This is Strawberry Maria from The Cake Bible - sans the Chocolate Lattice Band. I decorated this ala Hector. The cake comprises of Genoise Au Chocolat and frosted with Strawberry Cloud Cream.
It was my 1st time making Genoise Au Chocolat - so I was a bit nervous. Genoise sometimes is a hit and miss for me. Remember this one? Well turns out I had good baking mojo on Saturday, as this genoise could not have turned out better.
The Strawberry Cloud Cream was pretty easy. I let the frozen strawberries thaw on the counter overnight. Then while the liquid is boiling, puree the strawberries, then combined both. The good thing with strawberries is that the seeds are so soft that you don't have to strain it out.
Decorating the cake is not as hard as I thought! Hector was right! Piping this was easier than piping small roses for the Golden Lemon Almond Cake a couple of weeks ago. My only issue was that the cloud cream is pretty soft, it was hard to get it to stay straight on the sides and my rose center looks like they want to just blend together!
Tasting impression:
This cake got rave reviews from my friends. People were taking 2nd and 3rds. Comments are "the cake is very light", "it's not too sweet", "the frosting taste like strawberry ice cream", "did you use real strawberries", "I'm going for another piece." I couldn't be happier!
It Looks great... and I love the piping... very whimsy, and I life the pink color, not to bright, not to dark, just.right. Congrats on your first Genoise Au Chocolat – you have obviously nothing to be nervous about the next time. Nailed it!
ReplyDeletecongrats on your genoise! i love the combination of strawberries and chocolate, and i thought the piping came out pretty nicely. do you think adding gelatin to the whipped cream would help it hold it's shape better?
ReplyDeleteGenoise is fickle! This looks and sounds wonderful.
ReplyDeleteLooks soo pretty..love how you decorated the cake.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful cake, even without frosting. Don't mean to jinx you but I think you have conquered the Genoise! And the frosting compliments the choc wonderfully. I like to add gelatin to my mousse-like Cloud Cream. You can add it to the hot strawberry liquid (w/o boiling), stir until dissolved, or add it in the end. Just refrigerate it for a bit and you should be able to pipe it w/o blending (that's why I did for this year's Valentine Choc Cake (I used raspberry instead of strawberry but it's the same principle).
ReplyDeleteECL and Hanna,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestion. The cloud cream recipe does use gelatin, the quantity is pretty small though. Maybe next time I will increase it a bit to see if it helps the texture.