Chocolate Vanilla Coffee Entremet

Fall is here, I don't know where Summer goes. It seems just like yesterday when the warm weather is here. The temperature is now noticeably different here. It is getting dark sooner too. My portable heater is still on everyday and a wool jacket to keep me warm under the unbelievable cold AC in my office. It's been busy too, super busy. Somehow I find myself baking cake after cake every week too, from my nieces' and nephews' birthdays, all other family birthday, coworkers, celebrations here and there, bets, competition, farewell, you name it. Busy is good though., keeps myself occupied, though I am also longing for a long break just baking for myself :).

I don't know what a better name for this cake is. The least I could do is to list all the flavors in the cake and add the word "entremet" at the end. I made this cake for my sister in law's birthday a few weeks ago. I knew I wanted to make chocolate cake since she is a chocolate fan. Despite not being a chocolate lover myself, I actually love making chocolatey cake. Chocolate pairs well together with so many things: hazelnut, coffee, vanilla, rum, almond, caramel, and not to mention the chocolate-fruit combo, raspberry, strawberry, mango, passion fruit just to name a few. I love the many possibilities of flavors and textures I could combine together, oh how I love textures in cake.

I tried to come up with the components to build the cake, I want to incorporate as many different textures I can. Since it was purely experimental, it took me almost a week to come up with this. I decided that I want to make:

• Crispy hazelnut feuilletine
• Vanilla bean cremeux
• Chocolate biscuit
• Coffee creme brulee
• Chocolate bavarois
• Chocolate Glaze

I knew I wanted coffee and chocolate combo, the vanilla bean cremeux is only there to balance out the other flavors, while the hazelnut feuilletine is there mainly for texture, but also lend its subtle hazelnut taste.

I had to make the coffee creme brulee three times to get the right measurement for the height I want and the coffee strength I like.The first two were either not strong enough or too thin. Now I have two coffee creme brulee sitting in the freezer to be made into a "Spring Cleaning Cake" with other leftovers I have there (and I have a lot!). Overall, I am really happy with the result. So many flavors to try, you can expect some chocolate-coffee-banana combo in the near future, or maybe even 8 different textures of all chocolate cake, hmm... that will make a super rich cake, but I am excited!