The Caboose of Mousse

Here be the official final post about Mousse Cake class (Chef alleged on day one that the class was "not just about mousse," but everything we made had at least one mousse in it. I speak as I find).

Our final individual project was to create a cake of our own design, provide a binderful of details, including cross-section diagram, production timeline, equipment list and the costing out of each individual component, including glazes and garnish. We each then had to make two cakes, one garnished for retail and one for buffet.

For my inspiration I reached back to that damn Lebanese dessert that has become my obsession, kenefeh. It wasn’t enough to figure out through home experiments how to make it, or to do a mini-version for one of the Chef’s Tastings I did in Vegas, no no, I had to turn the warm baked dessert into a goddamn cold mousse cake.

Et Voila:

I have to say I am thrilled with the way it turned out. I mean, really. It was so goshdarn pretty! Aw, shucks. My classmates were dubious - I got more than one comment about the lack of drowning Vikings - but despite the outrageous girliness of it, I liked it. The above is a shot of the buffet cake (garnished for individual servings) with one slice removed so Chef could see the interior of the cake.

The shot below is of the "retail" version of the cake:

You may recall the kenefeh I became obsessed with at Ali Baba in Las Vegas was two thin layers of semolina dough surrounding the slightly-stringy al-kenefeh (also called al-kunefi) cheese, soaked in a syrup of saffron, rose and orange blossom water, served warm so that the cheese was just a bit gooey.

My adaptation, from the base up, was a pistachio japonaise (think meringue made with nut flour and baked till crispy), a layer of semolina and saffron madeleine, a layer of rose bavarian, another layer of semolina and saffron madeleine, topped with a ricotta and mascarpone mousse since neither Chef nor I could find al-kenefeh cheese.

The side garnish is a thin layer of jocunde (type of nut flour-based cake) baked with decor paste made to evoke strands of saffron, wrapped around the bottom two-thirds of the cake. The top garnish is an orange blossom, rose and saffron glaze topped with candied orange zest strands, candied pistachios and faux rose petals.

I wanted to use real rose petals, but Chef alleged that the storeroom didn’t have them. Maybe, or maybe he just didn’t wanted to order a pound of fresh petals at $70 a pop so one student could use nine of them. In any case, I was forced to make fake petals out of modeling chocolate. No biggie, since I like working with the medium and he seemed to really like the result, but not as cool as real petals would have been.

While Chef liked the neatness of the final product, especially the even layers (it looked exactly like my cross-section diagram), he wasn’t crazy about the flavors, though he added he wasn’t a big rose fan to begin with. I know I’m also going to lose points for using an "inappropriate garnish," but damn those nuts are pretty. You’re only supposed to use nuts like that for a plated dessert that will be made and immediately served, because the nuts in sugar tend to weep, melt, get sticky and generally make a mess. But after Chef showed us this super neat trick to make them, I felt I needed to use them, especially since their pretty, pearly, pastel color was a much better fit for the cake than plain pistachios.

After tasting it, I think I’d cut down on the rose water a little and make more of an effort to find the right cheese... the ricotta and mascarpone were utterly tasteless. Other than that, though, for once I’m happy.

Here’s a shot of all of our cakes, awaiting review:

There was one cake based on an Almond Joy and another on a Peppermint Patty. The bright red cake is a white chocolate, raspberry and pistachio creation. The two domes of torched meringue are Legolas’ creation of lemon, rosemary and rice pudding (I loved the lemon and rosemary part). The cake in the foreground on the right was one of my favorites: Mandilicious’ butterscotch and Bailey’s extravaganza, though the cake everyone devoured was a Bailey’s, Kahlua, Guinness and coffee concoction that was hella strong and hella good. There was also a take on Pina Colada that was okay but sadly lacking in rum.

The purple cake in the foreground left was Zesty’s tapioca and taro root creation. Now, I like taro, but whatever she did to it, the mousse left a really unpleasant, astringent taste in my mouth, like biting into tinfoil or an unripe banana. Not good. Her tapioca pearls had a really weird mushy-yet-undercooked consistency, too. She was also the last to finish by more than an hour. I know, I know, I shouldn’t kick someone when they’re down, and there but for the grace of God go I, but... let’s just say that I rejoice our time together as a team is over.