Fieldberry Mousse Cake and Almond Genoa Cake

I felt completely unprepared for today's workshop. It seemed like almost everything I learned in the demonstration Thursday had completely abandoned me over the weekend. Thankfully, you're always surrounded by classmates making the same thing and a wandering chef all-too-happy to steer you back in the right direction. And despite my initial misgivings, it turned out to be a really enjoyable and successful workshop.

The main cake of the evening was the Fieldberry Mousse cake: white chocolate mousse cake with a raspberry coulis insert and a bottom layer of pistachio dacquoise. Personally, I find this cake just a little too sweet, but it sure does look dramatic with the white and red contrast. I had some difficulty marbling the top with the chocolate and red glaze. I ended up liking the funky design so much that I kept the decor simple to direct focus to it.

 Now that we're in Superior, every cake needs to be accompanied by a plated dessert. Something I have been dreading for the last several months. I am absolutely dreadful at throwing together a plated dessert at the last minute. It was almost music to my ears when Chef H made it mandatory to draw a plan before class. It takes away so much unnecessary stress!

Here is my plated dessert for the Fieldberry Mousse cake. I used raspberry coulis and leftover white chocolate mousse to decorate the plate. Today we got to work with pulled sugar for the first time - sugar slinkies are surprisingly easy and fun to make.

The next cake was the Almond Genoa Cake with Mascarpone Cream and decorated with fruit. I butchered the cake slightly with my inability to grease the mold properly... and had so much trouble unmolding this cake. That being said, this is one of my favourite cakes so far this year. It is the perfect blend of rich cream, nutty almonds and fresh fruit.

For the plated dessert, I used some of the red and cocoa marbled white chocolate, raspberry coulis and passionfruit seeds to decorate the plate.