Mariee

The weather in San Jose has been scorching hot lately. I am not complaining really, in fact, I LOVE it! I began to open the window in my room when I sleep at night. My next door neighbor whom we share a fence with, has jasmine plant spreading along our side of the fence facing directly into my room and I love the smell. I just love this time of the year.

So about this cake, this is yet another cake from Mr. Sugino's book, well... almost. I made it for my sister in law's birthday last week, but I just finished it a week later due to the very busy schedule. I felt bad but I started the cake already and the least I could do was to get it done. I knew I wanted to make another Mr. Sugino's cake that uses pistachio joconde (which I already had in my freezer from the previous cake) and I chose Mariee, a strawberry and pistachio mousse cake on top of pistachio joconde. This cake is one of the simpler cakes in the book, which is part of the reason why I picked this one. I also wanted to use up the frozen berries I have in the freezer as part of the late spring cleaning.

Before I own Hidemi Sugino book, I had seen many cakes online from that book and this one is one of them. I remember trying to create a recipe with this exact flavor combination because it looked so pretty and it was this cake for my coworker's birthday. I didn't have as much knowledge about cake as I have right now (a lot can happen it over 2 years), and while it was really well-devoured, it tasted very different than this cake.

I followed the recipe almost exactly to the tee, including the pistachio joconde (which was delicious), the bavarois-based pistachio mousse, and the framboise syrup. However, I used different recipe for the strawberry mousse. His recipe calls for wild strawberry puree for the mousse and what I had was a regular strawberry puree. While the strawberries I had was froze at their peak last summer, it was not as concentrated in flavor compared to wild strawberries. I did try making his recipe though but when I started mixing the italian meringue and a little of the whipped cream, I barely tasted the strawberry flavor. It faded even more after I added quite an amount of framboise eau-de-vie (still following the recipe), and all I could taste was the alcohol. I added more strawberry puree to the mixture while keeping everything else mostly the same.

To be honest, I was a little worried about the strawberry mousse as the gelatin amount was still the same, but everything turned out pretty much perfect. I had the strawberry flavor I was looking for and the gelatin was enough to hold the mousse together, it was really soft, the same melt-in-your-mouth texture as the pistachio mousse. I am still dying to try his strawberry mousse recipe though and I am currently looking for a wild strawberry puree available. I had pink macarons ready, so I didn't make it the way Mr. Sugino made it, in a ladyfinger shape. For the glaze, I made it using the same recipe as i always did, which comes from Pierre Herme's recipe.

The cake was gone pretty quickly. It was a really light summery cake and very flavorful. I have to say that I love the Sevarome pistachio cake I bought. The flavor is so intense, it makes all the difference in the final result of the cake. I made strawberry and pistachio combination a lot before but this time, it was a lot better. The pistachio flavor was pronounced and compliments really well with strawberries. You can bet that you will see more pistachio stuff coming out.

Mariee

Biscuit aux Pistaches  - follow this recipe

Mousse a la Pistache (Pistachio Mousse)
   100g heavy whipping cream, whipped
   10g pistachio paste
   100g milk
   1/10 vanilla bean seeds
   20g egg yolk
   20g sugar
   3g gelatin leaf

• Follow the recipe for pistachio mousse here

Italian Meringue
   230g sugar
   30g water
   60g egg whites

Bring the sugar and water to 235-240F without stirring. Whip the egg whites till frothy and pour the hot syrup. Continue beating until it forms stiff peak. Let cool.

Mousse a la Fraise des Bois (Wild Strawberry Mousse)
   250g heavy cream, whipped (I used 200g)
   250g wild strawberry puree (I used 350g regular strawberry puree)
   140g italian meringue
   11g gelatin leaves, soaked in cold water
   50g eau-de-vie de framboise

• Heat the strawberry puree until it reaches a gentle boil
• Add the framboise and soften gelatin and stir until it melts
• Let cool in an ice bath
• Add the puree to the cooled italian meringue and finally, fold in the whipped cream

Sirop d'imbibage
   40g 30°B Sugar Syrup
   20g water
   20g eau-de-vie de framboise

• Mix all ingredients together

Decors
   Pink macarons
   Neutral glaze
   Strawberries

Assembly

• Cut the pistachio biscuit smaller than your ring mold, moisten with sirop d'imbibage
• Take the pistachio mousse out of the freezer
• On a baking sheet lined with an acetate sheet, assemble the cake upside down
• Pipe/spread a layer of strawberry mousse in the bottom of the ring mold
• Place the frozen pistachio mousse on top
• Add more strawberry mousse
• Place the pistachio biscuit on top
• Freeze the cake overnight
• Turn the cake over and unmold the cake
• Let it thaw overnight in the refrigerator and it is ready to be decorated