Last Wednesday, I threw a little surprise birthday bash for a dear friend who is obsessed with Paris!
We ate a raclette, which isn't French at all, and without going overboard with a theme I imagined the weirdest Paris Cake. Inside: a light "mousseline" cake filled with pudding and bananas in the three colors of France. Outside: chocolate icing with macarons. Here's how I did it.
6 eggs
225 gr of sugar including two packs of vanilla sugar (optional)
100 gr of potato starch (it works with corn starch as well)
50 gr of raising flour (or add a teaspoon of baking powder to plain flour if you don't have any)
Method
Divide the egg whites from the yolks. Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy.
Slowly stir in the stiffen egg whites, then the potato starch and flour.
Cook for about 45 min in the oven at 150°C.
MOUSSELINE CAKE
Ingredients6 eggs
225 gr of sugar including two packs of vanilla sugar (optional)
100 gr of potato starch (it works with corn starch as well)
50 gr of raising flour (or add a teaspoon of baking powder to plain flour if you don't have any)
Method
Divide the egg whites from the yolks. Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy.
Slowly stir in the stiffen egg whites, then the potato starch and flour.
Cook for about 45 min in the oven at 150°C.
I divided the batch in three bowls and added blue food coloring to one and red coloring to another as to have the three colors of the French flag. I spread some vanilla pudding between the cakes and added thin fresh bananas slices. I guess you can fill the cake with whatever you fancy. This "mousseline" recipe is scrumptious in my opinion because the potato starch makes it very light and fluffy.
I am not a very good "piping macarons" person. I am the worst actually. I only can do chocolate macarons so I cheated and bought some in the supermarket to give the cake a little color. The oversized brown macarons are mine. I baked way too many and only 5 or 6 ended up on the cake.
CHOCOLATE MACARONS
Ingredients185 gr icing sugar
185 gr almond powder
30 gr cacao powder
200 gr sugar
150 gr egg whites (about 5 eggs whites)
Method
Mix the icing sugar, almond powder and cacao powder together. Make a caramel by placing 5 cl of water and the icing sugar in a little pan. Let it simmer without let the water boil. Beat 75 gr egg whites until stiff while slowly incorporating the caramel so as to obtain a meringue.
Incorporate the non beaten egg whites in the almond powder mix. Then incorporate the meringue.
Spoon the mix into a piping bag and pipe little 2 cm disks on an oven tray.
Let it rest for an hour in a cold room but not humid (not in the fridge).
Cook the macarons for about 10 minutes in a 170°C oven.
To make the icing simply melt 70 gr of dark chocolate, 15 gr of butter and 20 ml of cream. Spread on the cake and add the macarons to the sides.
I printed this travel size Paper City Paris from Made By Joel to top the cake! Easy peasy. I also made a copy for the birthday boy so he could bring Paris home with him. Haha.
During this wonderful evening, my guests enjoyed two Jamie Oliver recipes from Jamie's Great Britain.
JAMIE OLIVER'S GREAT BRITAIN SHREDDED RAINBOW SALAD
Ingredients1/4 white cabbage
1/4 red cabbage
forgotten raw beets: yellow, striped red and white and red
forgotten carrots: purple and yellow carrots, orange carrots
Mayonnaise
Mustard
Cider vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and ground pepper
Worcestershire sauce (but I used HP sauce and a little dash of soja sauce because I had them in the fridge)
Tabasco sauce (I didn't use this)
Method
Shred all the ingredients in your food processor. Be careful not to stain everything with the red beets.
I also added pears and nuts. For the sauce, I just mixed everything.
JAMIE OLIVER'S GREAT BRITAIN PRAWN COCKTAIL
IngredientsSauce:
Mayonnaise
Ketchup
Pepper
Lemon
Sea salt and ground pepper
Cocktail:
Olive oil
Garlic
Pepper
Unpeeled tiger prawns
Iceberg lettuce
Mixed tomatoes
Cucumber
Fresh mint
Salad cress
Smoked salmon
Peeled little prawns
Lemon for serving (optional)
Method
Heat a large pan on a high heat, add a lug of olive oil and crush in a clove of garlic. Sprinkle in a good pinch of cayenne pepper and add the whole prawns. Cook until they're pink and smelling delicious!
Make the sauce (called Marie Rose by Jamie). Slice the lettuce, the tomatoes and dice up your cucumber. Pick the mint leaves, snip the cress leaves. Assemble all of that on a plate or in a jar, cup, glass. Layer the little prawns and smoked salmon on top of the salad. Pour the Marie Rose sauce over the prawns and finish with a few slices of smoked salmon. Add hot tiger prawns, a pinch of salt and pepper and voilà.
I'm no good at writing up recipes so if you have any questions, ask me! I'll be happy to clarify anything.
If you want to relive the whole evening, here is the long awaited video! (Watch it in HD)
