Daring Bakers Challenge and Opera Cake !!

Opera Cake, frankly speaking never heard this name before oops ... But this is what daring bakers challenge is all about, trying your hands on new things. So here I am posting my opera cake.
The challenge was hosted by four lovely ladies Lis, Ivonne, Fran and Shea , according to them it's an extremely elegant and polished French dessert that is believed to have been created around the beginning of the 1900s. Many people credit a gentleman by the name of Louis Clichy with inventing the cake and that's why it's sometimes referred to as Clichy Cake. It is is made up (usually) of five components: a joconde (a cake layer), a syrup (to wet the joconde), a buttercream (to fill some of the layers), a ganache or mousse (to top the final cake layer) and a glaze (to cover the final layer of cake or of ganache/mousse).
Traditionally, a joconde is flavoured with darker flavours such as chocolate or coffee. But in honour of the season (spring in our neck of the woods) and as part of our decision to tie our posts in with the LiveSTRONG theme, we are making Opéra Cakes that are light in both colour and flavour. This means NO CHOCOLATE, COFFEE OR COCOA. But it does mean vanilla, coconut, lemon, almond or whatever other light flavours you can think of. It means NO DARK COLOURS when decorating your cake. But it does mean lots of white, cream, ivory, yellow, light blue, light pink, light green or whatever other light colours strike your fancy.

My Experience with opera cake :


I decided on doing an almond jaconde, an almond vanilla syrup, a vanilla buttercream, a white chocolate mousse and a white chocolate glaze. Also i Halfed the ingredients to make a smaller cake.
So I started off by making the sugar syrup. I used Almond and vanilla extract to flavor my syrup.

Making the Buttercream:
I followed the recipe of buttercream from Perfect Party cake. I Joined DB just last month so never tried the buttercream of party cake. I have taken the recipe for buttercream from fellow daring bakers blog. Buttercream was flavored with vanilla again.

Making the Joconde :
I didn’t have jam/ jelly roll pans. I have never made jam/ jelly rolls before.So I used two 8 X 8 inch pyrex square pan. But I had a tough time removing the parchment off the cakes. One cake almost came apart.

Making the Ganache/Mousse:
I went on making Ganache following the given recipe. But since we don't like white chocolate flavor i didn't like the mousse. Also the texture was not very smooth. Next time will use dark chocolate or coffee flavor.

Making the Glaze:
I followed the recipe given. I coloured the glaze in light green to give a bright look to the cake.

Assembling the cake :
I moistened my cake with the syrup first, then spread the buttercream on each layer and kept it in the fridge for 1 hour untill very firm. Spread the mousse refrigerated for 3 hours. The top was not very smooth this time. Then i prepared the glaze and spread it. Chilled the cake well before cutting.

Lessons Learnt:
1. I did all the parts in one day so was very tired at the end. And moreover i couldn'nt decorate the cake as planned .Can very well do in parts next time.
2. Also we found the flavors were not very strong. Need to add more flavors next time if at all i am going to make it again. Because this time it was pleasing to eyes but not very tasty.


Note : Can mail me on trivedi.divya@gmail.com for the recipe.
My other Daring Bakers entry
Cheesecake pops