Oh, those shiny cakes!!! The Entremet.

Have you seen them? The super shiny cakes with the poured glaze that are taking over the interwebs right now?

Yeah you have. They are spectacular.

Shiny as still water, smooth as glass, and seemingly impossible.

 

 

Or is it?!?

Allow me to tell you a bit about my experience with these lovely cakes.

They are called entremets and I was first introduced to their glory while a student at The Culinary Institute of America not too many years ago. We created them for the weeks straight in a bakeshop titled “Contemporary Desserts” headed by the most amazing French chef, Chef Stephane Weber.

The desserts were fussy, so much so that they made the European chef’s I learned under seem like cuddly stuffed bears. (And that’s saying a lot considering we got our butts kicked thoroughly on a daily basis.)

 

The cakes were made with lots of delicate and fancy ingredients and inclusions, most notably mousse.

 

Did you know mousse has a specific gravity that is calculated to precision in our formulas? (Yeah, we called them formulas, not recipes. It kinda kills me to say recipe now.) Yep. Physicists in the kitchen. But is was important to do justice to this long standing classic in the French Pastry world.

 

Of course, there were those who had a difficult time wrapping their heads around the idea of light as air mousse, satin-like crémeux, fruit filled gelées and the likes. I got it. Some did not. That “some” may have been my partner for whom I think I got extra credit simply for having to work with them.

I digress.

 

The point here is “fussy”. Lots of involved ingredients, but an AMAZING finish! How lovely they are!

Lovely but not friendly for the home kitchen unless you are missing some common sense like me. The amount of dishes I’ve created when making these is not reasonable. My family DOES need dishware to eat from. I guess they need to eat period. I swear I’ve never forgotten meal time due to caking.

I swear it.

 

But I’m here to show you how unfussy they can be when you use some basic ingredients from your kitchen and a little ingenuity! You’ll need some special equipment like a pastry ring, acetate sheets, fun shaped silicone molds (which are really inexpensive!), a kitchen torch, and cocoa noir (black cocoa powder).

Watch my videos from my live entremet demo below and grab the recipes as well!

 

Assembing the Entremets

The Results!

 

And one more fun one for good measure:

And as promised, here are the recipes I used…

Flourless Black Cocoa Roulade:

Ingredient Amount

Egg whites 8 ea.

Sugar 8 oz.

Egg yolks 8 ea.

Cocoa Noir powder 2.5 oz

This makes 1 half sheet pan.

Instructions

1. Make a stiff common meringue with the egg whites and sugar. STart by whipping the egg whites in a stand mixer with whip attachment until they are frothy. Slowly sprinkle in the granulated sugar on medium-high speed and whip until stiff peaks form.
2. Whisk the yolks by hand to loosen.
3. Fold the yolks into the meringue, 1/3 at a time.
4. Add the sifted cocoa powder in to the egg mixture and fold gently. Do not deflate.
5. Spread evenly onto a parchment lined flat sheet pan
6. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes at 375°F or until it bounces back slightly to the touch.
7. Remove from sheet pan immediately and cover to keep from drying out.

 

Diplomat Cream (instead of mousse):

Ingredient Amount

1 8 oz. prepared package of cook and serve vanilla pudding - cold

Gelatin sheets 3 each

Heavy Cream 8 oz.

1. Whip the heavy cream to whip cream and reserve in the refrigerator.
2. Bloom gelatin sheets until soft in cold water
3. Melt the gelatin sheets in a microwave until liquidly and warm.
4. Mix a small amount of pudding into the warmed gelatin until smooth and quickly add it to the remainder of the pudding.
5. Quickly and thoroughly whip the pudding and gelatin together till smooth.
6. gently fold in the whipped cream 1/3 at a time.
7. Use immediately as the gelatin begins to set up rather quick.

 

 

Chocolate Mirror Glaze:

This recipe came from Ленивая кухня here. Though she uses glucose, I used corn syrup.

Ingredient Amount

Powdered Gelatin 3 packets (Knox)/20 grams

Water (cold) 120 grams

Corn Syrup 300 grams

White Sugar 300 grams

Water 150 grams

Condensed Milk 200 grams

White Chocolate 300 grams

 

Instructions

1. Bloom gelatin in 120 grams of water for 15 minutes.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the white chocolate, condensed milk and bloomed gelatin.
3. In a medium sauce pot, boil 150 grams of water with the sugar and corn syrup until it reaches 103*C / 217*F.
4. Pour the boiled mixture over the chocolate/milk/gelatin mixture and allow to melt.
5. Using a hand blender (burr blender as shown in my video above) blend until smooth avoiding air bubbles.
6. Add white food color to balance the yellowish color. Add any additional color you wnat to make it.
7. Pour over very cold entremet once it reaches 35* C / 95*F.

 

I hope you give these classic cakes a try. They are spectacular!

Some extra eye candy below…

 

 

 

And I am required to let you know that there are affiliate links in this post, so at no additional cost to you, if you click on them I might get a small reward. It keeps this blog chugging along and it is greatly appreciated 🙂 Damn this is embarrassing to have to add to my fun posts…