Post-Oil White Chocolate Passion Fruit Opera Cake

Despite my earlier hesitation, I am now stuck to this Daring Bakers baking club like burnt caramel on my kitchen counter. The other members are so nice. Their cakes look lovely. And explaining that I belong to an online baking club has become one of my preferred strategies for small talk at parties; it's an unabashedly nerdy pursuit and a potent antidote to art world self-importance. People think I'm a dork, but a dork who bakes cakes -- cakes that they could perhaps sample one day. There's something seductive in this.

But these warm feeling aside, I have two persistent concerns. One: perpetual baking is a good recipe for getting fat. I got fat the first year I lived in Scotland (something about eating chips every third meal and drinking 134 litres of beer in a week...) and I am not up for that again. Two: the recipes all assume that we own stand mixers. I don't. I understand their appeal, but I move a lot and they are heavy. And they take up counter space. And they're also out of my price range currently.( All this to say that if I was ever sure of living in a place for more than eight months and someone wanted to give me one, I wouldn't say no.) So my little broke and roaming heart sinks when I read yet another recipe that calls for whisk and paddle attachments. It's the reason I didn't do the first challenge after I signed up to the club.

But chin up. You can't be a victim in life. I couldn't just retire. And a couple of simple solutions allowed me to conquer this month's challenge: a white chocolate opera cake.

First step: Bike 30 miles, the last 10 hilly. This is what I did the day before baking the cake.  Although I was motivated by the chance to try out a new route and see a new part of the country and get to the beach and hang out with a friend, there is something lovely about cycling for hours and knowing that you can eat absolutely whatever you want afterwards. Nothing matters. The weekend before J and I biked 60 miles in a day and then assiduously consumed a container of ice cream. And then bragged repeatedly to all our loved ones.

Second Step: Buy an egg beater. An old-fashioned one with a red handle for £1.99 from the shop on the corner. With this little gadget you can be your own stand(ing) mixer. It's that easy. The perfect solution for a cheap nomad like myself who still wants fluffy egg whites. I would recommend that you all buy one now, because in the post-oil age when we have to bake over apocalyptic campfires, this is the only way you are going to be able to make meringues. (Again, please watch my politics shift if I ever actually own a stand mixer.)

So, on with the cake. I liked this challenge because even when I changed the font size to 9 pt, it was still five pages long. That's a recipe. The components of an opera cake are an almond sponge, a buttercream frosting, a ganache mousse, a simple syrup and a chocolate glaze. While normally this is made with dark chocolate and dark flavourings, we were told to keep it white and light and summery. Because I wasn't sure how my egg beater would perform, I left out the buttercream in favour of the ganache mousse. And I decided that I would flavour my cake with tart passion fruit to balance the choking sweetness of the white chocolate.

While making this, I discovered two things:

1) It wasn't really that complicated. Sure there are lots of components, but each component is not that involved. For instance, to make the syrup you just boil water and sugar and a little flavour and then leave it to cool. No problem. The cake and ganache weren't that hard either. I anticipated a full day in the kitchen, but I was done with enough time to get out to a patio and drink a slew of bloody marys in the hot Scottish sunshine.

2) My egg beater is fucking awesome! It whipped up the egg whites and the cream and the cake batter in no time. And it provided my right arm with a little toning session all the while. It was like my arm was going for a wee bike ride of its own. After beating the egg whites for the cake batter, I was so impressed with its performance that I regretted my decision not to make the buttercream. But I was too lazy to go out to the store to buy the stuff I needed at that point.

For a good step-by-step description of the stages and for the recipe, I would visit Cream Puffs in Venice here. You can see what all the other bakers made here.

For my offering, I kept closely to the recipe, but halved it. While I still made two sponge cakes in the jelly roll pans, they were probably thinner than they should have been. It didn't matter.

The passion fruit was introduced in the ganache filling that I spread between all of the layers, not just the last one like I was supposed to. I strained the pulp of five fruits through a fine-meshed sieve and added it to the melted white chocolate before folding it into the whipped cream. Pretty delicious. In the future, I would maybe up the juice content a bit since the flavour was subtle.

I then decorated the top with passion fruit seeds. Last month J described my cheesecake pops in a very unflattering and un-PC way. He thought everyone else's looked cute, though. This month he said my cake looked like it had been decorated by very neat and pattern-conscious mice. So sweet. So supportive. So not getting any of this cake.

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Housekeeping (or not):

The gods love it when I have to move house. They've conspired to make me do it again. J and I are shacking up and on the lookout for a new place. Because of this, postings may be erratic over the next month or two. Just go on without me. I'll catch up.

Comments

[Margaret]

I love your take on the Opera Cake. The passion fruit is a wonderful idea. The cake looks wonderful decorated with the seeds.

[Katie]

Thanks guys! You really know how to support a gal without a stand mixer.

Lynn, J has been waiting all week for someone to comment on his witty mouse comment. He will be thrilled! And I'll have to hear about it forever!

[Lynn]

Okay, the mouse comment is hilarious.... I love the passion fruit idea, and am glad your egg beater worked out for you... it has a great red handle!

[Shari]

I love your description about being a "dork who bakes cake". I'm one too. Love the passionfruit too, and you're so dedicated to tackle this project with an egg beater! Way to go.
Shari@Whisk: a food blog

[Jj]

Your cake looks fantastic and I give you a lot of credit for staying the baking course w/o a mixer!

[Barbara]

I love your use of the seeds for decorating the cake. It looks lovely.

[Sheltie Girl]

I agree...I love your egg beater. I've got an old one from my Mother with an old wood handle. It's so much fun to use. Your cake is beautiful and I love your flavors.

Natalie @ Gluten A Go Go

[Miss Ifi]

Your cake is soooo beautiful, and I have to admit that I laughed and I laughed when I say the comment "please watch my politics shift if I ever actually own a stand mixer" you are my hero!
Oh and yeah.. that egg beater will definitely build some arm muscle!!
p.s. Giving out cake to people works wonders for your figure and you end up with more friends!!! ^_^

[Christine]

I love your egg beater! In fact for one recipe I will swap my mixer for it! Just one recipe lol! Great job and love the passionfruit!