Today I had the pleasure of delivering a cake for a very special birthday- the caterer I work with was throwing a surprise birthday party for his mom's 80th birthday and he asked me to do her dessert. I was so excited because the Granata family is in its third or fourth generation of chefs! The family has owned a pastry shop in NYC and they know pastry! I felt very honored that Michael trusted me to make the cake, but at the same time I was nervous as well considering their background.
I really like contrast in texture as well as flavor and I really concentrated on that in the dessert. The base is a disk of french meringue, and the layer on top of that is a chocolate genoise cake. That was layered with dark Belgian chocolate ganache and sliced fresh strawberries. Atop that was another layer of genoise, then a quick chocolate "mousse". That was topped with white chocolate buttercream, then strewn with sugared strawberries, golden white chocolate pearls, and curls of dark and white chocolate. The whole thing was wrapped in dark chocolate. To wrap the cake, I melted dark chocolate and added a small amount of glucose syrup to make the chocolate flexible. This was cooled until it could be kneaded, then rolled out between two sheets of freezer paper. The cake was wrapped in the chocolate and then a chocolate fondant bow was wrapped around that. This was painted with edible gold paint.
The ultimate compliment? The family LOVED the cake and said it was crazy awesome! I am so glad- they are a very special family and I was glad to help out in their celebrations!
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