Red Velvet nougat

Instructions

FIRST DAY

Make Red Velvet sponge cake.

1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF/205ºC.
2. Line a perforated tray with baking paper. Set aside.
3. Sift the flour, set aside.
4. In the bowl of the KitchenAid or a mixer, add the eggs along with the sugar and salt. Whisk, increasing progressively the speed without reaching the maximum, until reaching the ribbon stage* (see in NOTES).
5. Once this point is reached, add red paste food coloring and beat again at medium speed until it dissolves completely.
6. On the other hand, in a bowl add the egg whites. Whip them at the lowest speed and increasing the speed gradually without reaching the maximum.
7. As soon as they start to foam we will add the icing sugar little by little and whipping at the same time.
8. Once we have all the icing sugar incorporated, we will continue assembling until obtaining a firm and brilliant meringue. Set aside.
9. Begin to add the dry ingredients, little by little, to the whipped eggs. We will do it with enveloping movements helping us with a spatula.
10. Integrate the whipped egg whites to the mixture and homogenize with enveloping movements.
11. Finally, add the butter and integrate again with enveloping and soft movements.
12. Introduce the mixture in a piping bag.

Bake.

1. To prevent the ends of the paper from lifting or moving when you pipe the batter, put small "points" of batter in the corners. In this way the paper will remain fixed.
2. Cut the tip of the piping bag and pipe the batter. Make a rectangle and then fill the inside trying to exert the same pressure at all times.
3. If we have more batter in the piping bag, we will create lines around the rectangle.
4. Place in the oven for 9-10 minutes. If we press the surface of the cake, it will return to its initial state.
5. Take it out of the oven and let it cool completely on a rack.
6. If we are going to use it the next day, once it is completely cold, cover it with film and leave it at room temperature.

Make the syrup.

1. Add all the ingredients in a saucepan. Place at medium heat and let it boil. The sugar should be completely dissolved.
2. Once it comes to the boil, turn off the heat and let it cool completely.
3. Place the syrup in a bottle, if we prefer we can pour it in a bowl or container, with the help of a funnel.
4. Reserve at room temperature.

Prepare the Red Velvet nougat coating.

1. Melt the white chocolate in a bain-marie.
2. Temper the chocolate until it reaches 82,4ºF/28ºC, we will use a digital thermometer to know the temperature.
3. Pour the white chocolate into the nougat mould. Swing to favour covering all the sides of the mould.
4. Turn the mould over, tapping gently to remove the excess white chocolate.
   
5. Leave to cool at room temperature for 20 minutes.
6. If you want the coating gets hard quickly, you can place it in the fridge.

Prepare the cheese and white chocolate ganache.

1. Before proceeding with the ganache, remember to remove the cheese cream from the fridge a few hours before it reaches room temperature.
2. Melt the white chocolate in a bain-marie, it must reach 113ºF/45ºC for us to be able to use it. If the temperature has been exceeded while melting, let it cool until you reach the specific temperature.
3. Add the inverted sugar in the white chocolate and mix.
4. Pour over the cream cheese and mix.
5. With the help of the turmix, beat to emulsify, we should obtain a smooth and homogeneous mixture.
6. Put inside a piping bag.

Assemble the nougat.

1. Cut the sponge cake into a rectangle. The length and width must be less than the total dimension of the mould.
2. Soak in syrup on both sides. Set aside.
   
3. Pipe a base of cheese and white chocolate ganache. We will fill a little less than half.
   
4. Smooth to make sure there are no holes.
5. With the help of a spatula, place the cake inside the mould. We will try to leave it centered. Press gently.
6. Fill the sides and the surface with the ganache.
   
7. Smooth the surface with a spatula. Remember to leave a little margin to cover the base with white chocolate.
8. Cover with film and refrigerate for 5-6 hours.
   

Cover the nougat.

1. Temper the rest of the white chocolate cover.
2. Pour over the mould and smooth with the help of a spatula to remove the excess.
3. Refrigerate for 24 hours.

SECOND DAY

Unmold.

1. To remove the nougat we must be careful not to force the mold or the nougat.
2. Carefully stretch the 4 ends to remove the mold from the nougat.
3. Turn carefully, we can place it on a board and turn it. Try not to touch the top at any time to avoid leaving fingerprints.

Decorate.

1. Melt some white chocolate and stick the sprinkles on the surface.
2. Let it harden at room temperature.
3. Sprinkle with edible ruby powder and serve.
   

Notes

• The ribbon stage is obtained by beating the eggs together with the sugar for several minutes. The mixture takes on a whitish colour and the texture becomes very thick to the point of lifting the whisk and being able to form a cord or ribbon over the mixture without deforming it. Hence the name.
• It is important to use a good quality white chocolate to get the best possible result.
• The cream cheese I use is spreadable cream, Philadelphia type.
• The sponge cake will be bigger than the amount we need to make the nougat. We can wrap it very well in film and freeze it to make more nougat at another time. Or we can give it another purpose that we want.
  
• Respect the steps of the process, tempering of the chocolate and temperatures to obtain a good final result.
• The decoration is totally optional, you can decorate it the way you like.
• I recommend you to keep it refrigerated and to temper it 1 hour before serving it. We can keep it wrapped in film and refrigerated for 5-6 days.
  

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