Tag: sponge cake

One of the greatest joys about being a mother is watching your little one grow and discover new skills. For example, James for the longest time could only roll from his back to his belly. Though he very rarely showed off his ability, despite how often I tried to get him to show me. A full month went by like that. One day, however, James suddenly started rolling over like a certified expert. Not only that, but he also started army crawling across the room. All within a span of a day! How does this happen so fast! As I’m typing this he is slowly making his way towards me. Well, actually, he’s been distracted by the large black recycle bin and has started making his way towards that. I feel snubbed. Any way…

The latest milestone has been his nap and sleep routine. Since I am a stay at home mom, I decided to forgo sleep training. I haven’t really felt the need to sleep train with him since he’s been sleeping through the night since he was 2 months old. I have come to learn that James will let me know when he’s ready. When we first started the process of transitioning him out of his swaddle, He would wake up every 40 minutes all through the night. It was highly exhausting. We stopped trying to force him out of the swaddle and decided to wait until he was ready to roll over. When that time came, we felt the urgency in getting him transition, so we tried again. It took one night. Now, he enjoys rolling all over his crib. It is kind of fun to see him in a different location in the crib than the position we left him in. 

Speaking of new skills, I really feel as if doing these challenges has helped me become a better baker. British baking is so precise, one measurement off and you get an entirely different bake. I have definitely learned from all of my mistakes, especially in the beginning. As the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect” and I agree wholeheartedly. Now on to this week’s challenge, Mary Berry’s Mokatines! 

They should be sheer perfection. The sort of thing that you find in the patisserie.” ~Mary Berry

I was very nervous going into baking mokatines since the base of the cake is a genoise sponge. If you remember in an earlier challenge, my sister and I had to bake a genoise sponge for our baking faceoff, Tiramisu Cake. I ended up mixing all of the air out of my eggs and the result was a cracker like cake. Funnily enough, a dry cake isn’t the worse thing to happen to a tiramisu cake, but for this delicate dessert would be a disaster. 

I cleared my schedule on Friday so that all I needed to focus on were the mokatines. Well, that and James of course. I started off with the genoise. I whipped the eggs up until I could trace a small pattern in them without it disappearing and I very carefully folded in all of the dry ingredients. This is where I have the biggest trouble, because you want all of the flour mixed in but the more you fold the more air escapes. Just when I thought I had the flour incorporated, I gently poured the batter into my prepared square pan. As the last bit of batter left the bowl, so did a giant pocket of unmixed flour. Gah!! Definitely not something you want. I quickly folded in the rest of the incriminating flour. At this point I’m really hoping I didn’t just kill my sponge. 

As the sponge was baking in the oven, I started on the crème beurre au moka. When making my shopping list for the week, I had looked over this recipe and found that the crème needed something called coffee essence. I couldn’t find anything like it, but I did find an easy recipe for it. All I needed was to boil coffee and sugar until it had reduced to a sort of watery syrup. After that the rest of the crème was a simple matter of melting the sugar and water over a low heat until reduced and whipping it in with the gently beaten up egg yolks. The coffee essence is then stirred into the crème. 

I took out the sponge from the oven and allowed it to cool. I was so far very pleased with how it looked. It had risen very nicely and bounced back slightly when I lightly pressed it with my finger. It was like a sponge!! What a novel idea! Once cool, I used a serrated knife to split the sponge through the middle. Then I added the crème over the top of one half and gently laid the other half on top. I then sliced the sponge into 9 even squares. I ended up using the entire amount of the crème although I was supposed to safe some for piping later. I had to go through the entire process of making the crème again, I just couldn’t believe it made such a small amount!

The coffee icing was just melting some butter in the pan with the instant coffee powder and then adding the powder sugar. 

The assembly was quite an experience. First to gone on was the icing. I dolloped a bit on the tops and allow it to coat the sides. I had to work quickly because it was setting extremely quickly. After a bit I had all nine of the sponges covered in the icing. I quickly chopped up some peanuts and started coating the sides with it. It was a challenge not to make too much of a mess, but, as my husband can attest, I failed. The final step was piping stars along the edge of the sponges. I had thought this would be the easy part. After all I have piped many cakes and cupcakes…this should have been easy. I soon found that I was struggling to get the crème piped smoothly. I think I had unconsciously trapped an air bubble in my piping bag. It made squeezing out the crème a bit impossible. Somehow I managed, until the last poor little sponge. All the pressure I had on the bag released dumping a whole pile of crème in a very unflattering way. I guess that sponge will not make it to the final photo shoot. 

I felt very proud of how they turned out. Were they sheer perfection like Mary Berry wanted? Not in the least. Most, if not all, of the cakes were slightly crooked, and my decorating could have been a tad tidier. However, I was happy with the result. I was even happier when I enjoy one of them. They were absolutely delicious! It had a nice coffee flavor, the sponge had a beautiful texture and I loved how creamy everything was. Absolutely, heavenly!

The next challenge Hot Chocolate Soufflé!

Mokatines

(From Mary Berry’s Baking Bible)

For the geneose sponge

40g (1 ½ oz) butter

3 large eggs

75g (3 oz) caster sugar

65g (2 ½ oz) self-rising flour

1 level tablespoon cornflour

For the crème au beurre moka

40g (1 ½ oz) caster sugar

2 tablespoons water

1 large egg yolk

75g (3 oz) softened butter

1 tablespoon coffee essence

For the soft coffee icing

3 tablespoons apricot jam

50g (2 oz) butter

3 tablespoons milk

1 level tablespoon instant coffee granules

225g (8 oz) shifted icing sugar

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350° F. Grease an 7in square cake tin then line the base with baking parchment. 

2. To make the sponge, gently melt the butter in a pan, then set to one side to cool slightly. Measure the eggs and sugar into a large bowl and whisk at full speed until the mixture is pale and mousse-like, and thick enough so that a trail is left when the whisk is lifted from the mixture. 

3. Sift the flours together into a bowl. Carefully fold half the flour into the egg mixture gently pour half the cooled butter around the edge of the mixture and then fold it in. Repeat with the remaining flour and butter. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. 

4. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 35-40 minutes or until well risen and the top of the cake springs back when lightly pressed with a finger. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes then turn out, peel off the parchment and finish cooling on a wire rack. 

5. To make the crème au beurre moka (coffee butter cream), measure the sugar and water into a small heavy-based pan. Heat very gently until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to a boil then boil steadily for 2-3 minutes until the syrup is still clear and forms a slim thread when pulled apart between 2 teaspoons.

6. Put the egg yolks into a bowl and give them a quick stir to break them up. Pour the syrup in a thin stream over the yolks, whisking all the time. Continue to whisk until the mixture is thick and cold. In another bowl, cream the butter until very soft and gradually beat in the egg yolk mixture. Stir in the coffee essence to flavor. 

7. Cut the cold cake in half horizontally and sandwich the slices together with a thin layer of the coffee butter cream. Trim the cake edges and then neatly cut in half, and then cut each half into 4 to give 8 oblongs. Sieve the apricot jam into a small pan and warm gently. Brush the top and the sides of the cakes with the hot apricot jam.

8. To make the coffee icing, measure the butter, milk and coffee into a small pan and heat gently until the butter has melted. Add the shifted icing sugar and beat until smooth and glossy. Leave to thicken slightly, then use most of the cream to pour over each cake, smoothing the sides quickly if necessary. Leave to set and then decorate with the remaining piped coffee buttercream.