This cake is inspired from the beautiful art work of Pastry Chef Hidemi Sugino's cakes. I did not know who this person was until I stumbled upon Gourmetbaking a blog by Bertha. Thanks Bertha for presenting your renditions in such an eye appealing way. your pictures are so beautiful. Hope to see many more such posts from you in future.
Yesterday was Mom & Dad's 45th Wedding Anniversary!.
Cheers to my parents for being married together and spending such beautiful years together and showering we kids with so much of love, care and all the patience of bearing our silly acts even today. We are kids you see, so all is accepted :)
LOVE you Dad, LOVE you Mom. This cake is for you guys. Happy 45th Anniversary!!!!
This is my first try at making an Entremet, and I am so satisfied how good it turned out. I am just unable to stop myself from admiring its beauty and the taste of the cake overall was the greatest achievement. Since I wanted to try my own choices in assembling this cake, I really had to work day night thinking how good I can present the colours within the cake that will be as appealing to the eyes as are the cakes that Mr. Sugino makes, and so was the taste, because that's what is needed in food that delights your eyes!!!!
I decided to go in with Blackberry, pistachio and vanilla mousse with a chocolate cake as the base, but still was not sure about which mousse goes where in the final assembly of the cake.
I was sure about the nutty creamy taste of the pistachio mouse and the creamy vanilla mousse would always result in a good partnership, but the blackberry fruit has a very different taste among the berries. Though tangy it has an addition of that bitterness.
I had never tried at making a Blackberry mousse. but was fascinated to see how cheating this fruit is when it comes to its colour. Though dark purple from outside that makes it appear black, when you puree this fruit it substitutes the versions of somewhat the black cherry colour and a touch of purple. So the final colour of the mousse looks like that of a cherry fruit inside. Now, I was sceptical about all this colour drama that this fruit offers, and just wanted to try it out not sure how the taste would be finally.
The pistachio mousse tasted perfect, so creamy, nutty, not too sweet. I just loved it. But the Blackberry Mousse was the complete opposite. It tasted a little bitter and very less of sweetness in it.
Oh I felt so bad at making such a bad choice with this fruit to be a part of my ever first Entremet. I wished I would have chosen raspberry or strawberry for this. But they could not substitute for the blackberry flavour you see. So with a very very heavy heart I thought of just finishing the cake . Thinking at least the pistachio and vanilla will do justice for the cake, not knowing what the vanilla choice had in store for me. When we try out something new disasters do happen so better try the next time . That's what I had to convince me. I vowed never to try anything new from my end the next time and just follow the methods told by the professionals.
Not knowing how wrong I was ......
I wanted the Pistachio taste as a surprise in the cake so went on to have the vanilla mousse layer all around the cake ( Next time I will try "Sicile" that has the pistachio mousse all around, since my family has already got a hint about this surprise taste now)
Not estimating properly for the amount of receipe I would be needing for the vanilla cream mousse, I had to do it again, that making me entirely out of energy at the time of assembling the cake.
But the effort was well worth to how good the mousse set.
The cake looked perfect, though the edges are not so good looking. I tried the hair dryer trick to unmould the cake from my 6 inch round cake pan but the cake did not want to move a single bit, or may be I was impatient at it. So I ran a warm knife around the edge and that made the sides of the cake look messy. But I was not more worried about it since I was going to glaze the cake with Cocoa glaze. But I guess that a chocolte glaze would prove an edge over my choice.
I did not want to put any decorations on the Glaze since it has its own beauty hidden inside. when I cut the cake it was a real surprise treat for the eyes. I really wished the taste would be as delicious as its beauty. Remember the blackberry mousse had disappointed me.
But there was a big surprise to me. The Blackberry's tanginess and bitterness was so well adjusted with vanilla and pistachio. Also the sweetness of this mousse was perfectly balanced with the other flavours. Blackberry was truly a surprise in this cake.
The cake was perfect in all ways and made feel so proud of my confectionary skills. It was not as heavy as I thought, and made a perfect light dessert for the weekend lunch. Though there is gelatine being used, the mousse is soft and creamy.
Here you go.....
Saved a piece for you.
Let me know how it tasted.
