Chef Din is back after a short hiatus from conducting classes in Amiplus to give 2 sessions with various recipes. The sessions will be shown and separated into two posts. Session 1 consists of Marshmallow Chocolate Cake, White Chocolate Macadamia Cake, and Black Forest Cheese Cake.
Here we see Chef Din introducing the recipes in the FOC recipe book given to all the participants. The recipes of this class can also be found in this book written by him and a few other collaborating chefs but sadly is not for sale.
To start off with Marshmallow Chocolate Cake, Chef Din introduces a well-known and well-received brownie mix (available in Amiplus) to make the base of his Marshmallow Cake.
He also shows participants the effect of using Colatta chocolate to make ganache to produce a shinier, smoother and of course, better tasting topping for any cake.
Everybody was given a taste of Colatta chocolate.
Fast forward to finish making the chocolate cream, ...
... spreading it over the base so that it covers nicely, ...
...arrange the marshmallows so that it comes with every slice of cake...
...add another layer of cream...
... make the top smooth and make sure it covers all corners and leave it to chill, preferably over night.
Chef Din had made a similar cake so that we did not have to wait overnight to see the results of the cake.
Pour the chocolate ganache melted with Colatta chocolate earlier over the top. Note how he uses the cake ring half risen to make sure the chocolate does not drip over the edges of the cake.
Removing the whole ring now.
The end product: soft velvety marshmallow chocolate cake, perfect for any sweet tooth person out there.
The next recipe, Black Forest Cheese Cake, starts with making the biscuit base with a mixture of melted butter and crushed biscuits.
Flatten it to make sure it covers the entire base of the ring so that no cheese filling spills out later on.
The special cheese batter mix goes inside the ring followed with canned dark cherries arranged in it.
Then it is steam baked till cooked through.
This is what it will look like after sufficient time in the oven.
For the topping, the Chef used a mixture of the leftover water from the canned dark cherries mixed with neutral gel and poured over it carefully so that it covers the entire upper surface of the cake only.
After setting, this is what it should look like. It is optional to add even more dark cherries on the top before letting the neutral gel set.
The last recipe, White Chocolate Macadamia Cake starts with the chopping up of macadamia nuts.
Once those are roughly chopped up, we proceed to make the caramel with brown sugar and cream over a double boil
Again, everyone tastes the fresh caramel
Chef Din slices a sponge cake into 3 parts...
...only to apply his cream recipe between the slices...
...not forgetting to add the macadamia nuts...
...and repeating the steps for the 2nd slice. A good tip to moisten the sponge cake is to drizzle a little of that caramel onto the sponge before sandwiching the sponge with the cream.
Cover the entire cake with the rest of the cream for a smooth finish.
Pour the rest of the caramel over the cake. It even makes a pretty simple dribble effect over the cake.
Applying simple decorations ...
Adding more of the macadamia nuts to the cake would give it more character and identity.
Finish it off with decorations of your choice.
By popular demand, Chef Din demonstrates how to create beautiful chocolate decorations with the high quality Colatta chocolates for any cake.
We hope to see you in our next baking class :)
Happy Baking~
