The Infamous Opera Cake

  I finally did it! After months of dithering the time was right for this particular adventure. Last week I really wanted a special tasty treat, but I also needed to keep myself focused and busy. So I decided to embark on the baking of the opera cake.  And let me tell you it kept me busy all afternoon. I started around 2pm and finished around 6pm - and that, even though I left out a step (not sure the chocolate layer on the bottom side of the cake is a necessity).

I'll give you a little flavour of the work involved.

   The first bit was the sponge. Despite requiring beating egg whites and some advanced mathematics to split the mixture into equal parts, it wasn't too hard. But I had to bake the three layers separately as I only have one cake tin of that size. Which invariably lead to me forgetting I had just got the cake tin out of the oven when I picked it up to get the next batch of dough in...luckily I only burned the one finger! And despite all of that, the cake tin was actually a bit too small and the wrong shape. So my layers were too thick and not entirely even!

   Next, I made the coffee syrup; which was easy enough and smelled amazing as I used rum.  😁

   After that, it all went downhill or rather uphill given the effort. I needed to make some coffee buttercream which for some reason required melting sugar to a precise temperature, then tipping it into egg yolks, but super quick to be able to mix it all without the sugar mixture hardening like rock candy! 

Then came the chocolate ganache, which just about seized (goes a bit grainy instead of nice and smooth). But as that goes in the middle and tasted like chocolate I decided not to make it again. I figured rightly that we wouldn't notice. 

And if all that mixing, spilling, burning, and washing up wasn't enough; you then have to assemble the cake...

Last but not least I made a chocolate glaze for the top. As the chocolate has melted you have to pour it on the cake and use a hot knife to spread it... A very messy business.

The verdict, a happy cake it is, but a one-off for sure. It's a rustic looking cake that tastes great and does remind me of the opera cake with its mix of rich coffee cream and that dark chocolate hit. 

Ultimately, the Opera Cake is an indulgent and refined patisserie that should be left to the pros. So while I could probably improve on this one, I'll stick to banana loaves and swiss rolls. Thankfully my local bakery has started putting these on their menu!! So I might have to try theirs as a treat and hope it lives up to my memories.