Fromage Blanc Mousse Cake with Berry Compote

I often find myself having lots of different berries in the fridge, more than what I actually need. You see, I don't enjoy eating berries plain like that as much as I do when they're in a dessert form. I'm such a dessert snob :(, so sad. Even more sad, I realize that I have this satisfaction when I own them. When I see them at farmers' market, I have very little will power to turn them down. It's like they're looking at you and begging you to take them home. I'll take them all home if I could. Then I'd feel really happy after I bought them, but right after they go into the fridge, it's a whole different matter. I have a very sensitive teeth that it hurts me when I bite something cold (heck, I can't even drink ice water without it touching my teeth), so after it goes into the fridge, I hardly look at them. Well, I do check them regularly to see if they go bad, it's like my pet, I keep checking on it time after time hoping that it will stay the way they are, just like when I first bought it.

This time is one of those times that I have too much berries on hand and I HAD to use them. Sure I can freeze them, but it's gonna be different. Frozen berries have a whole different purpose in their life :). It also happened that I have fromage blanc in the fridge that I bought a couple of weeks before. I was really curious about it and I have never used it before. So, I bought one at Whole Foods (the only place I could find it) so that I can experience something with it. The idea got distracted and has been put aside for some time until I saw those berries and the cheese together in the fridge. Besides, it's not cheap, even more expensive than mascarpone cheese, so it's way too good to let it go bad.

I saw some fromage blanc cake before when I was surfing through different blogs and sites, whether it is mousse, charlotte, cheese souffle, etc. I was once again googled it and see what are people use it for in their dessert. The similarity between all of them is that fromage blanc is usually paired up with berries. Then, I remember that I stumbled through Fanny's blog, Foodbeam a few days before and she just made a cake that I think is perfect for me to get my hands on the fromage blanc cake for the first time. She also posted a similar cake from a patisserie she interned with before. I really like the white clean color, you can almost taste the lightness of it and the fresh clean feeling after eating it.

I first tried to make the dacquoise, I have never liked it before. Despite it's being really easy to make, it's usually sickeningly sweet for my Asian taste. But I gave it a go one more time and I cut down the sugar by half from Fanny's recipe and I still thought it's way overly sweet, so I had to throw it away :(. I decided then to stay the tried and true plain old sponge cake that I kept in the freezer. I made the berry compote and freeze it in larger diameter than what Fanny had suggested as I found it too thick. Then I made the mousse and assembled it in 8" ring. I had to stretch the time of making individual component over a few days for making the compote, the mousse, the glaze, and decorating it. It probably took 3 days to complete as I only do it every night after work. I didn't get around to photograph it until I think two days after everything is done, and by the time I had the time, the cake didn't look as nice as it was before. The fruits on top don't look fresh anymore and the pistachio had soaked up the moisture from the glaze, even the color of the glaze is not as vibrant anymore :(, but I'm still happy that I can still get a shot of it anyway.

I didn't expect much from the taste of it as I got disappointed by the look already, but boy was I wrong. I was surprised by the lightness of it, the cheese actually tasted like yogurt, but less tart and more firm in texture. The berry compote is sweet but it has a slight tangy-ness and it compliments perfectly. I definitely want to make this again in the future with some modification :). I think there are some area that I want to do differently, and I can't wait to try it again next time. Sorry for the poor cross-section picture :(, I just wanted to show you how the inside looked like.