Betty’s Chocoholic Cake page 67 and TarteTropézienne page79

I was in Munich for the first weekend in May and did not have time to make the first LYL. I did both the Chocoholic cake and Tarte Tropézienne for this LYL.

I had a tarte Tropézienne for the first time last summer in France.  I bought it in a special shop for this cake.  It was heavenly and I went there again and again.

Here is the shop and the small tastes.

 

My son turned 9 years old on May the 18th and we had a party  for him on Sunnday and this was a great opportunity to make the two fancy cakes.

 

    Here is the Chocoholic cake

Here is La tarte Tropézienne

So lets start with the Chocoholic cake.
I bought 3kg of chocolate to begin with and 3 new cake pans.

I made the layers ahead of time and put them in the freezer for 3 days.  I took them out of the freezer night before the party and put it in the fridge.

I then made the ganachee.

With the cake I made raspberry coulis on page 449 and some whipped cream.

This is the coulis and it was so delicious with the cake.  The cake is so rich, which is no surprise with 655 gr of chocolate, 400 gr of butter and 6 eggs.

It got great reviews all around.

 

Now for the Tropézienne.

I went to a special shop for the orange-flower water.

So here is what I needed for the filling.

I used dark rum for the cake.  The pearl sugar was not like I wanted.  It was too fine but it was the only one I could find.  Here you can see the cake on the way to the oven.

I needed a sword more than a knife.  Here is the tarte after I filled it and before I put it in the fridge for a few hours.

The filling was so runny.  There is something wrong with how I did it.  See:

What a disaster.  After all the time I invested in this tart and I was so looking forward to have a slice.  It tasted good but what utter disappointment.  Maybe I did not heat the filling long enough I do no know the whipped cream made it even worse.

Here are some (all) of what I made for the birthday party.

You might recognise the following:  Jammer Galette, Ottolenghi salad from Jerusalem, tuna rillettes (Dorie AMFT) and David’s Artichoke tapenade.  They loved it all and were having Artichoke tapenade for the first time and loved it.  As you can see from the photo Dorie is the girl to go to for recipes.  La Tropézienne was not yet on the table.  I used up the egg whites to make the pavlova.  I did it by memory and I remember the ratio to be 25gr sugar per egg white.  Well that was not right it is 50gr sugar per egg white.  Anyway it worked out just fine cutting the sugar in half.

Here is the birthday cake decorated by the birthday boy, a classic chocolate cake with butter frosting.

This was a big success, apart from the tart.  Not doing that one again, just going to buy it when I go see my mother in law in France.

To see how the others did visit:

BCM LYL: Tarte Tropézienne or Betty’s Chocolate Cake

 

If you want to have a go at the tarte tropézienne:

http://food52.com/blog/11535-dorie-greenspan-s-tarte-tropezienne