Celebration cake: David's beautiful Gateau Russe
Whenever we went back to Biarritz, when I was a kid, and were taken
on one of our favourite outings, to the wonderful Dodin patisserie, I
would always ask for the same cake: a 'Russe', or 'Russian'. This
wonderful cake, made of hazelnut or almond meringue, layered with butter
cream that was either flavoured with coffee or hazelnut, tasted like a
slice of heaven to me, with its combination of breautiful crunchy
meringue and lusciously smooth flavourful butter cream. It's a cake you
only ever find in patisseries in the South of France, and only in the
south-west at that--you never see it in the patisseries of Paris, or
anywhere else in France. So you could get it in Toulouse and Biarritz
but not Marseille, for instance. I didn't know why it was called a
'Russe'. Though I'm not sure who first devised it, I'd
hazard a guess its origin might be in Biarritz, which was full of
Russian exiles after 1917. Dodin's Patisserie has been going since the
19th century and though it lays claim to being the originator of the
famous (and delicious)chocolate cake, the 'Beret Basque'(so-called
because its shape ressembles the famous Basque headgear) it does not
claim to have birthed the Russe, though its examples were always
wonderful. (By the way, if you want to drool over some of Dodin's
beauties, here is their website: http://www.dodin.eu/ )
Anyway
to get back to my Russe, it's something that I not only loved in
childhood but now too. But I always thought I had to wait to get back to
South-west France to indulge in it again. I thought it would be one of
those sorts of cakes that would be too difficult to pull off for a home
cook and so each birthday in Australia, I'd put in a request for my
second-favourite cake, the Gateau Moka. This is also a gorgeous cake--a
Genoise sponge layered with coffee butter cream, and David, my husband,
has made it superlatively well for many years. But a Gateau Moka is not
easy to make too far ahead of time and transport and as my birthday was
going to be in Sydney this year, I knew I'd have to think again. I
remembered seeing the 'Swallow's Nest' cake in the Russian cookbook we
bought in Moscow and thought, how about that, and then started thinking,
that sounds a bit like a 'Russe'--and then David said, well, meringue's
much easier to make ahead of time, why don't I have a go at a Russe? He
made me describe it and started looking up recipes--and then made his
own version which turned out spectacularly well and which proved a huge
hit at the birthday party!Here's his recipe for a beautiful 'Davidov' which I think I'll dub his version of the 'Russe'! And it shows that a home cook can indeed pull off a Russe as well as any patissier--all my siblings, who'd tasted the 'real' Russes, agreed that it reproduced exactly the look and texture and flavours we all loved at Dodin's!
The various bits of the Davidov cake can be
made well ahead of time--several days ahead in fact. If you do that you
need to conserve the meringue in an airtight tin and the coffee butter
cream in the fridge. As the butter cream will harden in the fridge,
you'll need to warm it up slightly when you are assembling the cake, or
you'll break the meringue. This cake will serve up to 15 people. (It did
at the party anyway!)
Ingredients for meringue layers and
individual meringue rosettes for decoration: 10 egg whites, 400 g
castor sugar, 2 tablespoons cornflour, 150 g hazelnut meal. You will
also need, for decoration on last meringue layer, some crushed roasted
hazelnuts.
Method: Beat egg whites till stiff, add sugar
bit by bit, beating well after each addition till you get a beautiful
glossy meringue. Mix cornflour and hazelnut meal together, fold into
meringue mix. On one greased or baking-papered tray, pipe some meringue
rosettes for decoration; on another two or three, the meringue
layers(this one had three layers). Bake in a slow oven(150 C) for an
hour or so, till done(biscuit-coloured and reasonably dry.)
Ingredients
for coffee butter cream: 6 egg yolks, 450 g butter(David used a mixture
of 300 g unsalted, 150 g salted, but you can use just unsalted if you
like), 2/3 cup castor sugar, 1/2 cup hazelnut syrup(or light corn syrup,
or pure maple syrup--David used the hazelnut syrup--Monin from France
which can be used to flavour coffee etc), coffee essence or make your
own as David did with 2 tablespoons instant coffee and two tablespoons
boiling water--it should be a thick gooey mixture--you can also use a
small amount of strong espresso).
Method: Dissolve the
sugar in the syrup in a pan on stove. Take off stove and let cool a
little. Meanwhile beat egg yolks till pale and foamy. Little by little,
mix the warm(but not hot)sweet syrup into the egg mixture. When you have
incorporated it all, cut the butter into small pieces and add to the
mixture, beating in well so butter melts and makes a thick cream(you can
make this in the food processor if you have one.) The cream can now be
used if you are putting together the cake or it can go in fridge till
you put the cake together. (Remember to warm it before use.)
Putting
cake together: Put the first layer of nut meringue on the plate, spread
with some of the butter cake. Layer the next round of meringue, repeat,
till you have used up the meringue layers and most of the butter
cream(but keep some for the top and maybe the sides if you want. On the
last layer, spread the rest of the butter cream, and decorate with the
meringue rosettes and crushed roasted hazelnuts.
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