Genoise with White Chocolate Passion Fruit Buttercream

Cooking School Resurfaces……

I made this yesterday – it’s good, but I’m never 100% happy with cakes – I guess If I made them everyday I would work out the kinks – such as – this one needed a fruit filling – raspberry jam would have been good.  Also Genoise usually needs to be brushed with sugar syrup because it’s a pretty dry cake – the recipe I read said that it would be moist from extra egg yolks – but that wasn’t the case!

Also, I’m pretty useless with piping tips – and I only had orange coloring – not a nice orange either… I made two cakes – one two layer round cake and one three layer square cake – I definitely like the square cake best –

I’m not giving you the recipe for the cake, you can use any recipe you want – But heres the recipe for the buttercream… which I love – remember to hit all the right temperatures – take your time or it will separate – which is fixable, but a pain in the ass!

By the way – I’m really not a fan of white chocolate, however, white chocolate buttercream is really good – I don’t know why – it’s just a nice combo of flavors and you would never guess it was white chocolate you were tasting – add passionfruit and it’s a great balance of sweet and a little tart.

Sheet cake:

Frosting the round cake – here’s a good tip – first of all, start at the top and push the frosting off to the sides – also, don’t try to make the first layer perfect – it’s called a crumb layer – if you get a few crumbs it’s ok – make it pretty neat and put it in the fridge for five minutes, then do the same thing again to get a pretty finish – also if you want it even neater – put it back in the fridge for 15 minutes or so – and run a hot offset spatula all the way around -keep in mind that buttercream never looks as neat as fondant (which tastes like crap anyway)

I don’t really want to show the finished product – but in the spirit of full disclosure…. I told you it was a bad orange – I should stick to dots – I do those pretty well!

Here’s the prettier of the two – I wanted to fill the entire top with the flowers but ran out of frosting!  Those flowers were a new thing for me – they worked pretty well… It’s a little wedding cakey… but if I had more colors I could make it look really pretty!

White Chocolate Passion Fruit Butter Cream –

3/4 c passion fruit puree – you can get this from fancy food distributors, but it’s also sold by Goya – usually in the small latin foods section of frozen foods.

8 oz white chocolate chips

1 1/4 lbs unsalted butter

5 large egg whites

1 c sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1. Put passion fruit puree in a pot and reduce by half – remove from heat, add the white chocolate and stir to melt – return to the heat if needed. Put aside to cool.
2. Allow butter to come to room temperature – that’s sort of soft, not nearly melted – and cut into large chunks
3. Fill a pot with a few inches of water and bring to a simmer
4. Put egg whites and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer – whisk to combine
5. Put the bowl of egg whites and sugar over the simmering water and whisk constantly until mixture reaches approximately 160.
6. Now place the bowl in the mixer (with the whisk attachment) and whisk on high until the meringue (egg and sugar mixture) is cool – this can take up to ten minutes.
7. Switch to the paddle attachment  – if you don’t have it – just stay with the whisk attachment.
8. When the meringue is shiny and cool, start adding the butter – add 1 piece at a time – I squeeze each piece through my fingers to make sure that it’s soft throughout – make sure that each piece is pretty well incorporated before adding another piece – add the rest of the butter.  Keep the mixer on high medium.
9. AT Add the vanilla and the passion fruit white chocolate mixture – mix – scrape down sides and mix again.

There are lots of ways to fix a broken buttercream -first try beating the mixture for a while – longer than you would think to – usually it will come back together.

Sometimes it will break if the butter melts , this happens when the meringue wasn’t completely cooled – fill a bowl with ice and a little water and maneuver it under the mixing bowl – keep the speed on medium and keep scraping down the sides.

If the mixture is too cold you can keep running the machine on high – usually the friction will warm things up enough to bring it all back together –