[Food 001] 20110118: Daring Baker Challenge January - Matcha Joconde Imprime with Matcha Biscuit Cuillere and Matcha Bavarois

Blog check line: The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

I've known about Daring Bakers for a long time but I never had the courage to join until now because I wasn't sure I could be able to accomplish every task for each month, but I realized 'why not try it if i want to try it?  There's nothing I need to afraid of!'  So, here I am, participating the first challenge of the Daring Bakers, and I'm glad I did it!  


So, when I found out the first DB challenge was to make a Joconde imprime, I was excited and worried at the same time. I was excited that this was my first ever DB challenge and I was so going for it, but at the same time, i  had no idea what joconde imprime is...I don't even know how to pronounce it!  Eek!!

Once i understood the Challenge by reading the instruction over and over and over (and over), i started to brainstorm the ideas.. like what type of pattern I'm going to draw, what kind of entremet i'm going to make and put in, would i be even able to make the pattern, let alone making the cake stands on its own.. With a lot of ideas, i had to remind myself that i'm not very good technical-wise, so what i'm going to do is to keep things simple. Eventually, i was set on making a matcha joconde with a matcha bavarois and Joconde cake layer.  

As a slow pace baker, I decided to bake each component of the whole cake separately.  First up, for the joconde imprime, I need to make the cigarette paste and then the joconde sponge.

Making the cigarette paste was pretty easy, however I put in a bit more matcha powder than I needed to, so my green colour was a bit darker than my ideal green in the final outcome.  I'm gonna make sure I don't put too much next time.
 

Then I made the Joconde sponge.  I made the first batch with the egg whites powder I bought from Wilton's.  And it's a failure. The "egg whites" turned out really lumpy and i couldn't use it for the joconde sponge, so I decided to use real egg whites before ruining my other ingredients. I wonder if any other bakers who are using the egg white powder can tell me how I can really use it, as I could only guess that I was using it incorrectly.

I used 1/2 of the Joconde pattern recipe and 1/4 of the Joconde sponge recipe and baked in 2 silpats. The first one, I was having no trouble at all and the pattern came out so smooth and clear.  I was so proud of myself and then I ruined the second one!!  Luckily, at the end I could actually used both of the Joconde imprimes (with a lot of trimmings of course) to make 8 long strips..and forgot to cut a piece for the cake base!  So I needed to make a cake base and the entremet layer as well.  


So I decided to make a matcha biscuit a la cuillere (ladyfingers) for the cake base and entremet layer.  I used the recipe from a Japanese cook book written by Toru Yumita.  It's a very good recipe with clear instructions, however, I made a mistake by making the egg yolk mixtures too early and it ended up solidifying in pieces, so when I tried to add it into the egg whites the batter couldn't be smooth enough (as seen in the picture)...although it's still pipe-able.

One day before eating it, I started to make the Matcha bavarian cream.  I also followed by the recipe in that same Japanese cook book I mentioned earlier, and let me tell you, it's a very awesome recipe!  For the whole part of the cake, I enjoyed the bavarian cream the most, not only it's tasty, it's very easy to make as well!  I don't usually eat cakes with mousse or bavarian cream, but this one, I like!  And I'm definitely gonna try more recipes from that book!

Finally, the assembling.  I was very worried about that because I'm not an artistic person, I tried to be more artistic but I don't have that talent..so..here's what I made with my best effort.

It's rather easy to take out the cake from the mousse rings, I didn't even use a hot towel to warm the cake rings, I just pushed it by the sides and the cakes came right out.  I used a small spatula to smooth the surface of the bavarian cream and let the cake set in the refrigerator.  Then on the next day when I was about to take them out for dinner, I whipped up some matcha cream for decoration, put it on top of the cakes, then I used a piping bag to pipe some patterns that I could think of at that moment (yes, I was so unprepared :( ), and here it is, my 2011 Jan DB challenge is done!

Along the way I made tons of mistakes, yet I learned a lot and I enjoyed every second of making it.  Challenge or not, I will for sure make this again later and I can't wait to do that!  Thank you so much Astheroshe for giving me such a wonder challenge!  Now let's wait for the Feb challenge...can't wait, can't wait~