My birthday

Yes, yes, yes... It was my birthday - April 6th and I had meant to post what I did for it some months ago. Normally, I don't like celebrating my birthday but this year I wanted to blow my candles, all 35!
So I made a vanilla cake with chocolate filling and covered with lucious chantilly...
Did I tell you I love chantilly? :) it's not only covered but on top chantilly roses ...



I baked a vanilla cake and then sliced it in 4 layers. I brush a syrop ( made with 200 cl of water and 200 gr of sugar, brought to boil for about 3 minutes and let it cool down before brushing it on each layer).
Brushing a syrop gives lots of moisture to a simple cake. You can flavour your syrop with alcohol (run, whisky, orange liquor, etc)

Then I made the dark chocolate filling...

For the dark chocolate filling recipe from Baking (Dorie Greenspan)
2 cups of milk
4 large egg yolk
6 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp corsntarch, sifted
1/4 tsp salt
7 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted
2 1/2 tbp unslated butter, cut into 5 pieces at room temperature

To make the dark chocolate cream
Bring the milk to a boil. Meanwhile in a large heavy-bottmed saucepan, whisk the egg yolkds with the sugar, cornstarch and salt until think and well blended. Whisking without stopping, drizzle in about 1/4 cup of the hot milk- this will temper, or warm, the yolks so they won´t curdle- then, still whiskin, add the remainder of the milk in a steady stream. Put the pan over medium heat and, whisking vigorously, constantly and throroughly (make sure to get into the edges of the pan), bring the mixture to a boil. Keep at a boil, still whisking, for 1 to 2 minutes. remove the pan from the heat.
Whisk in the melted chocolate and let stand for 5 minutes. Then whisk in the pieces of butter, stirring until they are fully incorporated and the chocolate cream is smooth and silky. Press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the cream to create an airtight seal and refrigerate the cream until chilled, or for up to 3 days. Or if you want to cool the cream quickly, put the bowl with the cream into a larger bowl filled with ice cubes and cold water and stir the cream occasionally until it's throroughly chilled, about 20 minutes.

I filled around 3mm each layer with the chocolate cream and then coat the exterior of the cake with chantilly.

Chantilly
1 L of cream - 40 % fat
120 gr of sugar
Whisk it until you have the right consistency, can form peaks. Be carefull not to over beat or you will end up with butter! Very expensive butter :)






what was left

yummy!