Winter Cleaning Part III: Chocolate-Coffee-Rum Entremet

It feels like it has been a while that this blog doesn't get updated. A little update here, I was on a baking frenzy the week before Thanksgiving, mostly making tons of lemon tarts and multiple Ambroisie and some other baked goods for office fundraising benefiting Canned Food Drive. Then I was gone for a week visiting Mike's family for Thanksgiving and for his nephew's birthday. It felt a bit weird not running around trying to catch up with time, but I got used to it very easily and thus making the day so much longer than usual :). I was back last week and took a week of break from baking and I am back in the kitchen now, at least for the next two weeks before the next trip. In the meantime, trying to finish office work as much as I can before my Christmas break.

While lemon is still the highlight of my kitchen for the past two months, today I will post about another Winter Cleaning I did a few weeks ago. I was so excited about this cake as it has all of the flavor I love. I had a few layers of coffee creme brulee from my previous experiment cake (I made a few while adjusting how strong the coffee is), a layer of chocolate cake, some chocolate streusel, and homemade mascarpone.

Yup, I made my first homemade mascarpone cheese. making homemade mascarpone has been on my list for the longest time and it seems so simple but for some reason, I seem to be more interested in buying the ready-made one, especially that the price is not that much difference than from making your own. That until I found 1/2 gallon of heavy cream at Costco, pasteurized, not ultra-pasteurized (which I prefer). I knew Costco has it but it is very rare and I only found it once before. It is a lot of cream and I needed it to make some other cake and decided that it is time to finally cross the homemade mascarpone cheese off of my list.

It was indeed very easy to make, only two ingredients involved. Like many other first-timers, I was skeptical at first because the cream didn't curdle and was pretty much the same texture as before I started, but it thickened up beautifully after a night in the fridge. I didn't have any plan of what to use it for, the only thing that came to mind was tiramisu, but I think it fits well with this cake. Sadly, I didn't have any picture of the process. Many people say the homemade version is identical if not the same as store-bought. I have to disagree a little to that. Texture-wise, it is definitely the same, but not taste-wise. It lacks the distinct taste and smell of mascarpone cheese that I am used to. Since the ingredients here is only cream and lemon juice, it will smell and taste like heavy cream too. I would use it for mousse-based application, but I will stick to the store-bought one for tiramisu.

So here's the component of the cake from bottom to top:

• crispy cocoa streusel-feuilletine-hazelnut layer
• dark chocolate mousse
• coffee creme brulee
• chocolate cake, soaked in strong espresso/rum mixture
• dark chocolate mousse
• coffee creme brulee
• covered in espresso and rum mascarpone mousse

I used this cake as a birthday cake for two of my friends, which party I wasn't able to attend due to another dinner commitment with Mike's aunts.

Even though sadly I didn't get to taste the cake, I really think this combination would work very well as a non-leftover cake and I am actually eager to recreate this cake properly with stronger coffee and rum flavor and better texture next time.