Daring Baker's - January 2011 - Biscuit Joconde Imprimé

Blog-checking lines: The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

Mandatory Items: Make the full biscuit joconde imprime, cut and fit into a dessert mold. Complete entremets.

Variations allowed: We could use any fillings for your entremets. We could use store bought fillings, to save time, or make homemade. The real task here was making the joconde wrap properly in a beautiful molded dessert presentation.

You may be asking what is this Joconde Imprime? Despite the difficult name, making it is not difficult al all. Just follow these few steps and everything will be done.

Patterned Joconde-Décor Paste

200g unsalted butter, softened
200g Confectioners' (icing) sugar
7 large egg whites
220g cake flour *
Food coloring gel, paste or liquid

*COCOA Décor Paste Variation: Reduce cake flour to 170g. Add 60 g cocoa powder. Sift the flour and cocoa powder together before adding to creamed mixture. - That was exactly what I did

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (use stand mixer with blade, hand held mixer, or by hand). Gradually add egg whites. Beat continuously. Fold in sifted flour. Tint batter with coloring to desired color, if not making cocoa variation.

Joconde Sponge

¾ cup - I used hazelnut flour, and omitted the butter
75g confectioners' (icing) sugar
25g cake flour
3 large eggs
3 large egg whites
2½ teaspoons white granulated sugar or superfine (caster) sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

In a clean mixing bowl whip the egg whites and white granulated sugar to firm, glossy peeks. Reserve in a separate clean bowl to use later. Sift almond flour, confectioner’s sugar, cake flour. (This can be done into your dirty egg white bowl). On medium speed, add the eggs a little at a time. Mix well after each addition. Mix until smooth and light. (If using a stand mixer use blade attachment. If hand held a whisk attachment is fine, or by hand). Fold in one third reserved whipped egg whites to almond mixture to lighten the batter. Fold in remaining whipped egg whites. Do not over mix. Fold in melted butter. Reserve batter to be used later.

Preparing the Joconde - How to make the pattern

Spread a thin even layer of décor paste approximately 1/4 inch (5 millimeter) thick onto silicone baking mat with a spatula, or flat knife. Place mat on an upside down baking sheet. The upside down sheet makes spreading easier with no lip from the pan. Pattern the décor paste – Here is where you can be creative. Make horizontal /vertical lines (you can use a knife, spatula, cake/pastry comb). Squiggles with your fingers, zig zags, wood grains. Be creative whatever you have at home to make a design can be used. OR use a piping bag. Pipe letters, or polka dots, or a piped design. If you do not have a piping bag. Fill a ziplock bag and snip off corner for a homemade version of one. Slide the baking sheet with paste into the freezer. Freeze hard. Approx 15 minutes. Remove from freezer. Quickly pour the Joconde batter over the design. Spread evenly to completely cover the pattern of the Décor paste. Bake at 475ºF /250ºC until the joconde bounces back when slightly pressed, approx. 15 minutes. You can bake it as is on the upside down pan. Yes, it is a very quick bake, so watch carefully. Cool. Do not leave too long, or you will have difficulty removing it from mat. Flip cooled cake on to a powdered sugared parchment paper. Remove silpat. Cake should be right side up, and pattern showing! (The powdered sugar helps the cake from sticking when cutting).

Preparing the MOLD for entremets

Start with a large piece of parchment paper laid on a very flat baking sheet. Then a large piece of cling wrap over the parchment paper. Place a spring form pan ring, with the base removed, over the cling wrap and pull the cling wrap tightly up on the outside of the mold. Line the inside of the ring with a curled piece of parchment paper overlapping top edge by ½ inch. CUT the parchment paper to the TOP OF THE MOLD. It will be easier to smooth the top of the cake.

Preparing the Jaconde for Molding

Trim the cake of any dark crispy edges. You should have a nice rectangle shape. Decide how thick you want your “Joconde wrapper”. Traditionally, it is ½ the height of your mold. This is done so more layers of the plated dessert can be shown. However, you can make it the full height. Once your height is measured, then you can cut the cake into equal strips, of height and length. (Use a very sharp paring knife and ruler). Make sure your strips are cut cleanly and ends are cut perfectly straight. Press the cake strips inside of the mold, decorative side facing out. Once wrapped inside the mold, overlap your ends slightly. You want your Joconde to fit very tightly pressed up to the sides of the mold. Then gently push and press the ends to meet together to make a seamless cake. The cake is very flexible so you can push it into place. You can use more than one piece to “wrap “your mold, if one cut piece is not long enough. The mold is done, and ready to fill.

*Note 1: If not ready to use. Lay cake kept whole or already cut into strips, on a flat surface, wrap in parchment and several layers of cling wrap and freeze.

*Note 2: As I had some Joconde Sponge and Decor Paste leftover, I repeated the whole process and baked over another rectangle of biscuit. When ready I cut a circle the same diameter of my  spring form pan ring and lined the bottom of the pie with it. Then it was ready to receive the filling. I chose a lime cream and a chocolate mousse as fillings. 

Lime Cream
2 cans condensed milk
Juice of 3 limes
Mix well and pour over bottom of pie. Refrigerate until firm.

Chocolate Terrine
This is the same recipe of the Chocomint Terrine I did at the first dinner of the Laboratory, whose theme was Terrines.
5 eggs
150 g sugar
1 spoon (soup) of mint liqueur
350 g dark chocolate
200 g butter

Beat eggs with sugar, mix the mint liqueur and set aside. Place chocolate and butter in a baking dish and melt in double boiler (or microwave minutinhos 5). Add the beaten eggs mixing gently, without stirring. Pour chocolate mixture over the lemon cream. Spread over some of the almonds and top with another layer of chocolate. Place in the freezer for about 10 hours (preferably overnight). Serve cold.

If you have paid attention, you may have noticed that at the end of all this game, there was 10 egg yolks left over. Hence I decided to test a recipe of Quindão (Brazilian traditional  dessert, with egg yolks, sugar, coconut and/or cheese) which I found in an old magazine.

Quindão

12 egg yolks
3 egg whites

500g crystal sugar
1 tsp. soup butter
200g fresh grated coconut
Butter for greasing
Crystal sugar for sprinkling the form

Mix the egg yolks, egg whites and sugar. Add the grated coconut and butter and stir well. Grease the pan and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Pour the batter in it. Arrange the pan on a roasting pan with boiling water and bake in water double bath, in preheated oven for about an hour (actually my Quindão took 1 hour and a half). Umold when fully cold.

To be honest, I did not like it. I prefer the old recipe of my mother and grandmother, but that is something for another post.
I had also a good Decor Past leftover. So I made a plain white cake and roughly mixed the Decor Past with it. I got a kind of "marble" cake. Yummy.

Additional Information:

http://lesotlylaisse.over-blog.com/article-realiser-un-biscuit-joconde-i...
http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/recipe/joconde-cakes
http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/recipe/pate-a-cigarette-batter-choc...
http://ricettedafairyskull.myblog.it/archive/2010/05/29/biscuit-joconde-...
http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2004/02/pierre_hermes_aztec_ent...
http://sum.ptuo.us/roller/ks/entry/entrement_project_at_nwcav
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca4eLDok-4Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e1DsyDtcd0&feature=related

Many thanks to Astheroshe of the blog accro for pushing me out of my confort zone with this really amazing challenge. I learned a lot with this Joconde Imprime and I'll be doing this again and again.

If you liked this, please don't forget to visit The Daring Kitchen and check what wonders the other guys had done!

 

Também em www.labgastro.blogspot.com