Entremets

I always had a narrow view of what constituted a cake: layers (often dry and otherwise unpleasant) separated by greasy frosting. In the case of wedding cakes, same but wait a year and attempt to eat another piece.

Well the bad news is that's a pretty accurate representation of the average cake. The good news is it doesn't have to be that way.

We spent about a week on these French style cakes. These are typically about 6" in size, with a couple of layers of sponge cake and a couple of layers of delicate mousse or Bavarian creams ("bavaroise"), and are formed in some sort of mould. Care is taken to ensure that the sponge layers are moist. Additional elements may be added for flavour, texture or visual appeal. There's a lot more creativity to this than in say, a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream.

One cake we made was called a "Trio of Chocolate Mousse Entremet", featuring "chocolate almond success" sponge cake, dark, milk and white chocolate mousses, and a chocolate glaze. You might think this a bit too... chocolate, but it was simply marvelous -- and I noticed a cake of the same size and structure -- also 6" in an upscale supermarket, for C$25.99. It was a lot of work, but hey, you could make money on that!

After the week of entremet-learning, it was our turn to invent something ourselves. We got C$5 each for special ingredients and we each "built" our custom entremets. Most came out really really well -- there's a slide show here.

Entremet
It's French for something.

I always had a narrow view of what constituted a cake: layers (often dry and otherwise unpleasant) separated by greasy frosting. In the case of wedding cakes, same but wait a year and attempt to eat another piece. Well the bad news is that's a pretty accurate representation of the average cake. The good news is it doesn't have to be that way. We spent about a week on these French style cakes. These are typically about 6" in size, with a couple of layers of sponge cake and a couple of layers of delicate mousse or Bavarian creams ("bavaroise"), and are formed in some sort of mould. Care is taken to ensure that the sponge layers are moist. Additional elements may be added for flavour, texture or visual appeal. There's a lot more creativity to this than in say, a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. One cake we made was called a "Trio of Chocolate Mousse Entremet", featuring "chocolate almond success" sponge cake, dark, milk and white chocolate mousses, and a chocolate glaze. You might think this a bit too... chocolate, but it was simply marvelous -- and I noticed a cake of the same size and structure -- also 6" in an upscale supermarket, for C$25.99. It was a lot of work, but hey, you could make money on that! After the week of entremet-learning, it was our turn to invent something ourselves. We got C$5 each for special ingredients and we each "built" our custom entremets. Most came out really really well -- there's a slide show here. Previous Log Next Log

This site created and maintained (sometimes) by Scott Blessley. Copyright © 1999-2008. Permission granted to copy material, provided that the source is attributed. Links to our site from yours are much appreciated.Thanks, More recent material at http://blog.blessley.net

Previous Log

Next Log