Sour cherry season has already come and gone around here, but I'm just now getting around to writing about the sour cherry recipes I made this year. (I also made the Cherry Crumble Tart from German Baking Today by Dr. Oetker for the same dinner party where I served the Watergate Cake; I was not happy with the result and I'm not going to bother blogging about it.)
François Payard's Simply Sensational Desserts has a recipe for a "Gâteau Basque" that has vanilla pastry cream and cherries baked inside. The cake recipe is written to produce two 8-inch cakes and it refers back to a separate recipe in the cookbook for pastry cream. You're supposed to use approximately 2/3 of a batch of pastry cream to make the two cakes, so I just used a complete batch of pastry cream to make three cakes. You make the pastry cream by adding a tempered mixture of egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch into a hot mixture of milk and vanilla bean seeds; bringing the mixture to a boil; and finishing it off with a little butter.
To make the cake batter you whisk eggs, sugar, and vanilla bean seeds until thickened and pale; add melted butter; mix in the dry ingredients (ground almonds, flour, and baking powder) and rum; and let the batter stand for 20 minutes. The batter thickened considerably upon standing. You spread some cake batter into the bottom of each buttered and floured pan; pipe the pastry cream on top in a spiral; arrange pitted cherries on top of the pastry cream; and spread more cake batter on top of the cherries and pastry cream. It was challenging to cover all of the cherries with the very stiff cake batter; in some places, the layer of cake batter on top was so thin that you could see the cherries underneath. I brushed the cakes with egg wash and baked them until golden.
I loved this cake. I stored it in the refrigerator because of the pastry cream inside (the recipe says you can keep it in the fridge for a week) and it was very refreshing when served chilled. Each bite was a delicious sandwich of firm cake around cold and satiny smooth pastry cream. The almond flavor in the dense cake was subtle (a bit of almond extract might be a good addition), and the cake itself would probably taste better at room temperature. But as a whole, this dessert was still delightful. The only thing I might change would be to add more cherries.
Recipe: "Gâteau Basque" from Simply Sensational Desserts by François Payard.
Previous Post: "Not as Easy as Apple Pie: Caramelized-Apple Gateau Basque," June 7, 2014.
To make the cake batter you whisk eggs, sugar, and vanilla bean seeds until thickened and pale; add melted butter; mix in the dry ingredients (ground almonds, flour, and baking powder) and rum; and let the batter stand for 20 minutes. The batter thickened considerably upon standing. You spread some cake batter into the bottom of each buttered and floured pan; pipe the pastry cream on top in a spiral; arrange pitted cherries on top of the pastry cream; and spread more cake batter on top of the cherries and pastry cream. It was challenging to cover all of the cherries with the very stiff cake batter; in some places, the layer of cake batter on top was so thin that you could see the cherries underneath. I brushed the cakes with egg wash and baked them until golden.
Recipe: "Gâteau Basque" from Simply Sensational Desserts by François Payard.
Previous Post: "Not as Easy as Apple Pie: Caramelized-Apple Gateau Basque," June 7, 2014.
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