Daring Bakers: Opera Cake

My second challenge for the Daring Bakers is gateau l'opera or opera cake. A multi-layered cake involving jaconde, a nut-based biscuit, buttercream, mousse, and a ganache glaze. I've never made this before, but I've certainly had it at some point in my life.

The recipe is quite long, so I won't reprint it here. It was based on the opera cake recipes in Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets and Tish Boyle/Timothy Moriarty's Chocolate Passion. May's challenge involved "light" colors and flavors. While opera cake is traditionally chocolate, the challenge required the DBs to look to non-chocolate flavorings. I decided to stick to the path of least resistance. The challenge recipe already used almonds, vanilla, and white chocolate, so I stuck to those flavors and added fresh strawberries. When I baked this, strawberries were running for $0.77 to $1.35 a quart. That's local Carlsbad strawberries, so the season was clearly in full-swing.

My favorite part of this challenge was the jaconde. I had tons of almonds on hand, which was a convenient coincidence. The cake is nutty and rich, although it came out too thin for me. I used two half-sheet cookie sheets, which is slightly larger than the jelly roll pans required in the recipe.

Next time, I will put all of the batter into one sheet pan, cut it into three pieces, and end up with a smaller cake. The almond meal is combined with whole eggs and sugar, then folded into whipped egg whites.

The beginning of folding... turned out a lot better than it looks!

The buttercream required a boiled sugar syrup that is cooked to 225 degrees F. I let mine go to 240 degrees F while I took this picture:

Turned out fine. The hot syrup is poured into eggs and egg yolks while they're being whipped in a mixer. There was a whole vanilla bean's worth of seeds in the syrup and I amped up the vanilla flavor by adding extract on top of the bean. Butter is added to the egg/syrup mixture to complete the buttercream. The end result is something like a pastry cream, with the extra vanilla being a nice touch.

I didn't find this recipe difficult, just time-consuming. The great thing about it was that all of the individual components could be made one at a time, then assembled later. So, I spaced it over a week in preparation for a belated Mother's Day in LA (Mom wanted to celebrate a week after Mom's Day proper, to avoid crowds).

Assembly was fairly easy. The jaconde was brushed with a simple syrup, which was flavored with limoncello, then covered with buttercream and strawberry slices (see first photo). This step was repeated once more, then topped with the last layer of jaconde. After that came the white chocolate mousse, which consisted of white chocolate melted with some heavy cream, then folded into whipped cream. After that, a white chocolate glaze was poured on top.

White chocolate overkill.

I would have thinned out the ganache glaze a little more, because it hardened quite a bit, making it like a white chocolate bar on top of a cake. Too much and too sweet. I would have also changed the mousse to a light lemon to bring out more of the strawberries.

The edges were trimmed off with a sharp knife to produce the final product. The too-thin jaconde led to sagging corners where the cake was thinnest. Hence, the slope of the cake.

Closer look at the layers.

Another DB challenge done! I can't wait for June's challenge. A big thank you to Ivonne, Lisa, Fran, and Shea for hosting!

And of course, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, Mom! I love you!

Vo's Cafe

Update (February 25, 2011): It's been nearly three years since this post and I regret not having posted an update or recent photos. Vo's has been a regular on our rotation and the owner, François, is amazing. D.'s favorite is still the fried rice with beef, chicken, and egg roll combo. Mine is their phở gà, or chicken noodle soup. Their egg rolls are delicious.

This post receives many hits and I wanted to add a some current information for those of you dropping by. Vo's has been a great addition to the North Park area and I hope you have the opportunity to meet François and try his food.

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Vo's is a new Vietnamese eatery in North Park. Located in the walk-up cabana formerly occupied by Tio Tito's, Vo's dispenses more-than-decent Vietnamese dishes.

The menu is short and sweet, with emphasis on stir-fries. Rice plates, stir-fried veggies, and bun, rice vermicelli served dry with meat and herbs, are the dominant features of the menu.

Walking right up to the window, D. and I each ordered the Vo's special combination: fried rice topped with grilled beef and chicken and accompanied by a spring roll (my order) or an egg roll (D.'s order). The beef was overcooked and dry, but the chicken and rice were excellent. Spring roll was pretty good, except it could have used more herbs.

D.'s egg roll was good and he also wanted potstickers, which aren't Vietnamese, but he always orders them when they're on a menu.

They were ok. Methodology was fine (frying, etc.), but the filling was a little bland. All in all, a good meal and a welcome new addition to the neighborhood.

Vo's Cafe
2632 University Ave.
San Diego, CA 92104

Yoshi Sushi

Yoshi Sushi, located in Mira Mesa, is a good deal for decent sushi. For $19.95, one can eat as much freshly prepared sushi as they would like. It's better than Todai, not quite as fabulous as Sushi Ota.

During one of our blazingly hot days (now replaced with cold gray days), I lunched with the gents from the chemistry department. I'm not a particularly huge roll fan, but the soft-shell crab at Yoshi is pretty good.

There's a variety of cooked items on the menu, like hamachi kama or the grilled cheek of the Japanese amberjack (yellowtail). It's delicious and smoky, with the "dark" meat of the fish cheek flaking easily off the bone.

The nigiri (pictured at top) is good and very fresh. They should use a higher grade of fish, which would be more flavorful. Their salmon tends to run on the fattier side, which makes it buttery and fantastic, but the tuna is rather flavorless.

It's a bit pricey for lunch, of course, but it's a welcome splurge every now and then. Still, for that "crappy sushi" fix, I'm wondering if Todai might be a better deal. More bang for buck and their sushi is not much worse.

Yoshi Sushi
6715 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92121