Week 10: French Cakes

This was that we made five different classic French cakes out of countless recipes of meringue, glaze, mousses, buttercream, and all the cakes we made in previous weeks. It required the aid of one of those very large plastic bags to transport the goods, as well as some extra large eating pants!

The Triomphe is made with a walnut cake, caramel buttercream, caramel mousse, topped with a caramel glaze:

The Citron consists of: one layer of white genoise soaked in a citrus glaze and topped with lemon mousse. The second layer consists of a meringue shell, topped with more lemon mousse and surrounded by lemon buttercream. After the lemon glaze is applied, crumbs from the genoise are used to decorate the sides. The flower on top is a sugared orchid from our seminar on exotic fruits, spices, & herbs:

Once we finished the mousse-lined cakes, we moved along to the cakes lined with even more cake!

The Charlotte Helena, while not my favorite, I must say looks pretty cool. It's lined with ladyfingers (the one recipe I have mastered after making them a bazillion times) and filled with chocolate genoise, chocolate mousse, poached pears (that's where the recipe loses me). More chocolate mousse and chocolate curls are used for the decoration:

I liked this Spring Passion a lot more than I expected. It was the lime mousse that initially made me squirm, but I've since been eating spoonfuls at a time from the leftover container in my fridge and freezer (different consistencies!). This cake was made of lady fingers soaked in strawberry syrup and layered with the lime mousse. A decorative jaconde cake is used to line the rings, and the lime glaze and candied limes finish off the cake:

Rounding out the evening is the Success. Please note, praline is delicious (even if it's $160 for a 10lb bucket!). The cake consists of success macaroon (a hazelnut meringue); Chocolate Praline Mousseline and praline buttercream. My stenciled cake top didn't quite work out, but nothing a nice thick coat of powdered sugar can't hide!

I'm off to Cali for a week to find a place, so posts will probably be non-existent for the next few days. I'm so bummed to be missing out on croissants, that I actually considered flying back and forth the country twice within 3 days-I guess all the fat I've been consuming is restricting bloodflow to my brain!

Have a great week, everyone. And if you have any recommendations for delicious pastries in LA or SF, holla at ya girl :-)