Torte Eszterházy

Instructions

FIRST DAY

Make almonds and egg whites sponge cakes.

1. Preheat oven to 374ºF/190ºC.
2. In a bowl mix ground almonds and cocoa powder, previously sieved. Set aside.
3. Draw circles 7,8 inches/20 cm in diameter on baking paper. We will be able to draw 2 for each sheet, but to bake them we will have to do it of 1 in 1 unless your trays are very wide.
4. Prepare 2-3 templates. If you wish you can make 5, although it is not necessary because we can reuse the first ones. Set aside.
5. We can also place a cake disc under the baking paper and use it as a template.
6. Separamos las claras de las yemas.
7. Separate the egg whites from the yolks.
8. Cover the yolks with film and reserve at room temperature. If it is very hot, refrigerate them until the time of use.
9. In the bowl of the KitchenAid or of a stand mixer, pour the egg whites and whip with the whisk until the become foamy and frothy.
10. Start on low speed and we will gradually increase it, little by little and without reaching the maximum, while we add the sugar in batches.
11. Once we get the egg whites whipped, stop.
12. Start integrating the almond mixture into the meringue. We'll do it little by little. Integrate it with the help of a silicon spatula making enveloping movements.
13. Once we have all the ingredients integrated, put the mixture into a piping bag.

Pipe and bake.

1. To prevent the ends of the paper from lifting or moving when you pipe the batter, place some small amounts of batter in the corners of the paper on the perforated tray. In this way the paper will remain fixed.
2. Remember to place the paper with the painted area downwards.
3. Cut the tip of the piping bag and pipe the batter. Make a circle following the pattern we have drawn. Then fill the interior trying to exert the same pressure at all times.
4. Smooth the surface with a spatula.
5. In total we need to make 7 discs. In my case I got 95, will depend on the pressure you exert when piping the batter.
6. Place in the oven for 8-9 minutes. We will observe that the surface grows in a non-uniform way. Don´t worry, it´s ok, after leaving the oven will be perfect.
7. Take it out of the oven and let it cool completely on a rack.
8. Repeat the process with the rest of the cake discs.
9. Be careful when removing the baking paper from the cake, it is very delicate. If we bake them on Teflon sheets, they would separate very easily.
10. Once they've cooled, cut the outer edge. To do this, I used a plate with a diameter of 18-19 cm. Put it on the cake and cut the edges. In this way we will achieve a cleaner and more perfect finish. If you have a ring/cutter with those dimensions, perfect, you can use it to carry out this step.
11. If we are going to use them the next day, once they are completely cold, cover them with film and leave them at room temperature.

Make egg yolk cream for buttercream.

1. Heat the milk until it boils, then set aside.
2. Add the yolks in a bowl along with the icing sugar.
3. Mix until completely homogenized.
4. Add the flour and the cornstarch and mix again until they are fully integrated.
5. Pour in the hot milk, little by little, and mix quickly at the same time. We must do it in this way to avoid the yolk curdling and forming lumps.
6. Pour the mixture into a saucepan, place it on low heat and cook, constantly mixing. Cook until the yolk mixture thickens, which will take about 5 minutes.
7. In case you have any lumps, you can use the turmix in the cream and pass it through a sieve. But, if you carry out the process as I tell you, everything will be fine.
8. Pour the mixture into a container and cover it with film.
9. Let it cool down completely at room temperature.
10. Once it has cooled down, refrigerate it until the next day.

SECOND DAY

Make egg yolk buttercream.

1. First thing in the morning, remove the egg yolk cream from the fridge to be tempered. At least 2 hours before working with it.
2. In the bowl of the KitchenAid add the butter and beat at medium-high speed. We should get a white, aerated, creamy butter.
3. Remember to stop the KA and lower the butter from the sides whenever necessary. This way we will churn all the butter equally without leaving any leftovers.
4. Start adding the egg yolk cream little by little at the same time as we churn together with the butter at speed 2. We can incorporate it in 3 batches.
5. Once we have introduced all the yolk cream, add the vanilla extract and mix again at high speed for 20 seconds.
6. Set aside.

Assemble the cake.

1. Place a disc to present the cake on a rotating support for cakes. Under the disc place a piece of non-slip so that it does not move.
2. Put a small amount of buttercream and place the first sponge cake.
3. Place a thin layer of buttercream and spread with the help of a spatula trying to be as smooth as possible.
4. Put another sponge cake and press lightly. Repeat the same process as the previous time and do this same step with all the layers.
5. Spread the rest of the buttercream on the sides. Remove the excess using an edge smoothing tool.
6. Refrigerate the cake for 15 minutes.

Make jam layer.

1. Heat the jam and passed through a sieve. Press well to avoid wasting as little as possible. In this way we remove the possible pieces of fruit that may have and we will obtain a soft and fluid consistency. No lumps or pieces.
2. Add the rum and mix well.

Cover the cake.

1. Remove the cake from the fridge.
2. Pour the jam on the surface of the cake and spread it with a spatula. We must cover the entire top.
3. Set aside.

Prepare the chocolate for the decoration.

1. Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie.
2. Add the almond oil and mix until completely homogenized.
3. Keep in the bowl with the heat of the water, but the fire off, until we have the fondant glaze is ready. It is important that the chocolate is hot when we decorate the cake.

Make fondant glaze.

1. In a bowl mix the icing sugar with the lemon juice, almond oil and 2 tablespoons of hot water.
2. Add hot water little by little and mix at the same time until you get the desired consistency. In my case I added almost all the water, except for 1 Tbsp.
3. Mix well to achieve a homogeneous and smooth glaze.

Cover the cake.

1. At this point it is important that we have everything ready because we have to work quickly to make sure that the superior decoration looks good.
2. Place melted chocolate in a piping bag with a delineation tip. If you don't have this type of tipe, make a small cut at the end of the piping bag.
3. Place baking paper or a Teflon sheet on the rotating cake stand. This way we will avoid staining the stand.
4. Put the anti-slippery on the Teflon and place the cake on it.
5. Pour the icing on the cake, you can use a spoon or spatula to distribute it over the surface.
6. Next, draw chocolate lines on the fondant icing. Don't worry if they are not straight or some of them are intermittent, then it won't be noticed.
7. With the help of a toothpick or knife, create the pattern that I show you in the video. We must clean the knife every time we draw a line on the surface. Otherwise, we will leave traces every time we pass the knife again.
8. Let it dry for 1 hour at room temperature.
9. Remove the excess from the base and refrigerate until the next day or at least for 12 hours.

THIRD DAY

Decorate.

1. Decorate the surface with cut strawberries, raspberries, chocolate sablée cookies, chocolate bowls and mint leaves.
2. Sprinkle bronze coloring powder and serve.
3. I recommend tempering the cake for 1-2 hours before serving.
   

Notes

• The sponge cakes are very thin, slightly thicker than a pancake. So don't worry if you notice that they are thinner than normal.
• This sponge cake does not need to be syrupy, it is very soft and juicy, as well as very fine.
• Traditionally, the cakes do not contain cocoa powder, only ground almonds or hazelnut flour. In my case I wanted to give them a note of colour so that the layers would be well differentiated. For that reason I added some cocoa powder.
  
• The yolk buttercream can be made on the same day. In my case I decided to divide the process so that I could record the videos with calm. Also, I preferred not to leave the cream done to avoid having to leave it at room temperature overnight. Despite having cooked the yolks, I preferred to refrigerate the yolk cream, temper it in the morning and assemble the buttercream a couple of hours later.
• You won´t have yolk buttercream leftovers. Do not overdo the filling so that there is enough for all the layers and the outside of the cake.
  
• Apricot jam can be replaced by peach jam. I recommend heating it and passing it through a sieve to obtain the consistency and texture you see in the video.
• It is very important to work with the freshly made fondant glaze, otherwise it will start drying and hardening, and the hot chocolate. If we don't do it this way, after piping the chocolate, it will harden quickly and we won't be able to create the pattern in the drawing because the chocolate will have solidified.
• If you don't want to use lemon juice in the icing, omit it and use only water with the almond oil.
• Almond oil can be replaced by another variety of vegetable oil that provides little flavor such as grape seed or sunflower oil.
  
• The decoration is completely optional. In my case I decided to decorate it like this, but feel free to do it the way you like or feel comfortable. The most traditional way, cover the sides with laminated or chopped almonds.
• To make the little chocolate bowls what I did was to melt 70% dark chocolate, put it in a piping bag and pour it over a silicone mold. Let them cool down completely and carefully unmold them.
• We can keep it refrigerated for 3 days from its assembly.
  

Archivado en

• Almonds
• Black Chocolate
• Breakfast
• Butter
• Meringue
• Vanilla