Mr. Fork meet Mr. Cake, now meet my mouth...

Today I found out that I will not only be graduating with a Diploma in Patisserie and a Certificate in Cuisine, but I will also have received my 'associates degree' according to the United Kingdom. Any one else find it humorous that I am getting my Associates after my Bachelors and before my Masters? Just one of the many surprises this little adventure turned big adventure has lent out to me.

Now, onto more important things, C-A-K-E...

Chocolate, cake, ganache, cake, coffee buttercream, cake, ganache, chocolate, pretty piping. Its true! Heaven on earth does exist and it exists in a cake called the Opera. The Opera cake was invented for a big meeting between the United States and France. Apparently in the early 1900's France needed to borrow some money from the US and the grand dessert for the important dinner (the deal closer in my opinion) was the ever so impressive Opera cake.

Normally I am just not into the sponge cakes we make at school. They are dry and soaked in some kind of alcohol, not my top choice calorie intake item. The Opera cake is luscious and flavorful. I brought it back to my flat and the cake quickly was eaten up by my roommates and their friends. Probably a good thing, because I could have just sat down with that cake, a fork, and a good movie...well, lets just say by the end of the movie, bye bye cake.

My chocolate piping was of course too thick, big shocker. My chef said that I was a little stingy with the buttercream, probably the first time anyone has ever said that to me, but otherwise it looked really nice and I did and excellent job on all the components. I was happy that everything came together, because although the cake assembly sounds simple there are a ton of things that can go wrong with this cake. Our buttercream recipe is a very old traditional buttercream recipe, where you have to whip up egg yolks until a light yellow color, then boil sugar until 118-119 C, then you run that boiling sugar down the side of the kitchen aid bowl, once the bowl comes to room temperature, you start adding in your butter bit by bit. The buttercream has to be at the perfect temperature otherwise the buttercream will split. The ganache is nothing special, chocolate and cream, but if it gets too cold it rips the cake when you spread it, if it is not firm enough then there will not be a nice layer. The cake batter must be perfectly even before baking, so that when you go to stack the cakes it is all perfectly level...that is a very important technical aspect of this cake.

Quote of my practical: "Chef-y, remember that more isn't always better when it comes to the decoration," my head chef said to me after he watched me stair at my chocolate piping on top of the cake with a pondering 'should I add more swirls of chocolate to distract from the few tiny cracks in the top of my cake from cutting the edges off' look for about 5 minutes.

Lesson of the day: Patience is a virtue, but opulence not so much.