Opera Cake

This is one of my trial cake as I like to bake a new cake recipe. I found this cake quite interesting because the ingredients contain almond meal, as I never bake with it before. I was worried when I mix the almond meal into the cake mixture that I would weigh down the batter because of its heaviness, as the cake batters has to take turn to be bake in the oven. It didn’t collapse but it might be because it didn’t take that long to bake the cake. Just to be safe, next time I will mix the almond meal just before each cake layer is going to be bake.

There are few errors when I bake the cake as I usually did with my new found recipe ;p The recipe stated that the cake should be bake with a 30×30 cm square tin, however I found that the cake mixture doesn’t really enough for 3 layers of 30×30 cm cake, but it was too little too late. So what I did was cutting a two layer 30×30 cm cake in half and have a 4 layers 15×30 cm cake. Oh well, it still looks great.

I still wonder though why the coffee mixture uses half liter of hot water, which is a bit too much for me or probably I wouldn’t dare to take risk to pour all of the liquid onto the cake. Next time I will make 250 ml instead and pour all of them, as I found the cake a bit dry. I probably only poured 125 ml to the cake and try to drink some of the liquid by adding ice cubes and ending up with throwing the left over liquid into the sink.

I usually waiting for an occasion to happen in order to bake a cake, and now its my brother in law’s turn. This cake is to celebrate his master graduation ceremony. I decorate the cake with chocolate butterflies, which previously wasn’t intended to be a butterfly. When I start to put them together, it forms a butterfly shape, oh what the heck I just make them to be one. And there they were 8 butterflies, which were a bit too crowded for the cake, and I blame it to the previous stated recipe that is to bake them on 30×30 cm square tin. It is nice to the fact that I am able to blame it on something … and not myself ;p

Ingredients for Opera Cake

• 15 egg yolks
• 5 eggs
• 200 gr caster sugar
• 125 gr plain flour
• 20 gr corn flour
• 15 gr emulsifier (I use Ovalet Koepoe-Koepoe Brand)
• 250 gr almond meal (I use 200 gr)
• 90 gr butter
• 90 gr margarine (I used Blue Band Brand)
• 1 tbsp rhum (optional)
• 1 tbsp sweet condensed milk
• 500 ml hot water (I used 250 ml)
• 40 gr cocoa powder (I used drinking chocolate Cadbury Brand)
• 20 gr coffee
  
• 100 gr sugar
• 3 tbsp rhum (I used Kahlua)

Ingredients for Chocolate Ganache

• 1 cup dark cooking chocolate
• 3/4 cup thickened cream

Preparation time (duration): 90

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!