When our friends Jim and Colleen recently has us over for dinner, I wanted to bring something different than the usual chocolate cake. Since I'm still looking for ways to use my newly-acquired cake ring, I decided to try Jacques Torres' Fraisier recipe from Dessert Circus, one of the two companion cookbooks to the public television series of the same name. While "fraise" means "strawberry" in French, Torres also adds raspberries to his cake.
The two main components of this cake are a sponge cake ("biscuit") and a raspberry buttercream. To make the biscuit, you whip six egg whites with sugar until stiff, fold in eight egg yolks, and then fold in flour. You put the batter in a pastry bag and pipe out spirals on parchment paper to form the cake rounds. You sprinkle on a bit of powdered sugar before putting them in an oven so that a nice crust will form during baking. The cakes bake quickly (6-10 minutes) at high temperature (400 degrees). I ended up making the cakes twice, because the first time I made two errors: I overbeat the egg whites, and I forgot to sprinkle on the powdered sugar before baking (and now I know that omitting the powdered sugar results in a sticky top crust, instead of a nice dry crust).
The cookbook offers two choices of basic buttercream recipes. The first includes 1 egg, 5 egg yolks, water, sugar, and over 3 cups of butter. The second calls for water, sugar, 5 egg whites, and 2 and 1/4 cups of butter. I went with the latter, both because it used less butter, and because I already had 4 extra egg whites on hand (from making two batches of the biscuit batter, since each batch produces two extra whites). To make "Basic Buttercream 2," you beat the egg whites until foamy, beat in a sugar syrup that has been heated to 250 degrees, and continue mixing until the meringue is no longer hot. Then you incorporate the butter all at once and whip until the buttercream is smooth and shiny, about 10 minutes. For this cake you fold 3/4 cup raspberry jam (a recipe is provided, but let's get real, I used store bought jam) into the buttercream.
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To assemble the fraisier, you line the outside of the cake ring with some sliced strawberries, and then put a round of cake (trimmed so that it is smaller than the cake ring, and will fit inside the strawberries with some room to spare) on the bottom. You then fill the space between the cake and the strawberries with buttercream. The recipe instructs you to use a pastry bag, but I was a bit lazy and used an offset spatula; as a result, my buttercream was a little messy and left gaps everywhere. You brush the cake layer with raspberry simple syrup (made from sugar, raspberries, and water that have been cooked, strained, and cooled), and then cover it with a layer of buttercream and strawberries or raspberries. On top of that, you add another cake layer, brush it with syrup, and then cover it with more buttercream. Finally, you top the cake with more sliced strawberries. After you chill the cake, you unmold the cake from the ring, and you should end up with a nice cake covered in smooth buttercream. My failure to use a pastry bag resulted in all sort of nooks and crannies in the buttercream. Lesson learned -- next time, I will be much more diligent about minding the gaps and making sure I get full buttercream coverage.
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The cake portion of the fraisier is a firm, delicious sponge -- it tastes exactly like the birthday cake my mother used to make for me growing up. The cake is a little dry, however, and it does need the syrup to help keep it moist. I scrimped a little with the raspberry syrup, because I didn't want the cakes to get too soggy -- but in retrospect, I wish I had used a lot more. The raspberry buttercream is incredible -- rich and smooth (but non-greasy), it's like raspberry butter. I also wished that I had used an offset spatula to even out my cake batter before baking. Since I piped the batter out into spirals using a pastry bag, the cakes were not level, and I didn't want to level the cakes after baking since the top crust was so nice.
Nonetheless, this was a lovely, delicious dessert, and it's an amazing way to showcase berries. I look forward to making this again, especially in summer, during strawberry season!
Recipes: "Fraisier," "Biscuit," and "Basic Buttercream 2," from Dessert Circus: Extraordinary Desserts You Can Make at Home, by Jacques Torres.
The two main components of this cake are a sponge cake ("biscuit") and a raspberry buttercream. To make the biscuit, you whip six egg whites with sugar until stiff, fold in eight egg yolks, and then fold in flour. You put the batter in a pastry bag and pipe out spirals on parchment paper to form the cake rounds. You sprinkle on a bit of powdered sugar before putting them in an oven so that a nice crust will form during baking. The cakes bake quickly (6-10 minutes) at high temperature (400 degrees). I ended up making the cakes twice, because the first time I made two errors: I overbeat the egg whites, and I forgot to sprinkle on the powdered sugar before baking (and now I know that omitting the powdered sugar results in a sticky top crust, instead of a nice dry crust).
The cookbook offers two choices of basic buttercream recipes. The first includes 1 egg, 5 egg yolks, water, sugar, and over 3 cups of butter. The second calls for water, sugar, 5 egg whites, and 2 and 1/4 cups of butter. I went with the latter, both because it used less butter, and because I already had 4 extra egg whites on hand (from making two batches of the biscuit batter, since each batch produces two extra whites). To make "Basic Buttercream 2," you beat the egg whites until foamy, beat in a sugar syrup that has been heated to 250 degrees, and continue mixing until the meringue is no longer hot. Then you incorporate the butter all at once and whip until the buttercream is smooth and shiny, about 10 minutes. For this cake you fold 3/4 cup raspberry jam (a recipe is provided, but let's get real, I used store bought jam) into the buttercream.
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Nonetheless, this was a lovely, delicious dessert, and it's an amazing way to showcase berries. I look forward to making this again, especially in summer, during strawberry season!
Recipes: "Fraisier," "Biscuit," and "Basic Buttercream 2," from Dessert Circus: Extraordinary Desserts You Can Make at Home, by Jacques Torres.
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