Monday, March 29, 2010

Le Petite Succes



Le Succes is a definite success.   Everyone likes it very much.  Chewy almond cake and smooth chocolate ganache frosting with a certain je ne sais quoi, which happens to be hint of lemon tea.


Mixing the batter of eggwhites, ground blanched almonds and sugar was simple enough.  I missed the instruction to smooth the tops before baking, producing disks with resembled funnel cakes at the fair.  Luckily they spread during baking.  And after I was feeling rather proud of myself for laying out the ingredients in bowls, including the divided sugar, in an effort to mend my errant ways.


All went well until it was time to face fear, namely The Beast, which still intimidates me.  I tried to stuff a pound of chopped chocolate into the ever faithful mini Cuisinart, but alas, it could not be.  With trepidation, The Beast and I squared off.


Thirty minutes later of fiddling about with That Thing, lots of dark chocolate, scalded creme fraiche and heavy cream, a splash of English Breakfast tea infused with lemon extract and Voila! delectable chocolate ganache.  


The most difficult element in this recipe is the requirement of patience. Letting the ganache cool for three hours   was agonizing.  I should have made the ganache the day before.  There was but one thing to do; errands including shopping at Whole Foods.  That place can make anyone forget about anything, especially with displays of King Arthur's unbleached Cake Flour, which naturally stopped me in my tracks pondering what Rose might think about unbleached cake flour.  


Since the discs were on the thin side having burned one to an absolute crisp, I decided to cut out mini ones with a biscuit cutter for individual cakes.  A final dusting of Valrohna cocoa.


                                               



The leftover bits and pieces made for some rather nice truffles.

                                      
Crumbled cake mixed together with the chocolate ganache and rolled in Valrhona cocoa. There would have been loads more but little fingers prefered the almond cake bits plain and absconded off into the sunset.

This recipe for Le Succes seems adaptable to all sorts of variously flavored ganache.

8 comments:

  1. Very clever to make the minis! The flowers are a beautiful touch. :)

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  2. so pretty with the flowers! :)

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  3. I love the minis. That looks about the right ratio of cake to ganache for my liking!

    Pretty flowers - I think begonias, but don't recognise the other two.

    Truffles with left over cake and icing is genius. One day I may just make that happen in my kitchen.

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  4. Man.. They look so cute! mmmm and so going to steal the truffle idea!

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  5. ב''ה

    Looks great. Well done!

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  6. Those cupcakes look cute! And great creativity to make them truffle - like Monica, I might steal it someday :).

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  7. What a great idea to use your biscuit cutter to make mini cakelettes. They look beautiful and so do your truffles :o)

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  8. What great ideas1 They look beautiful and festive. jjoan

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