Roland Mesnier's Basic to Beautiful Cakes
By Roland Mesnier and Lauren Chattman
4.5/5
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About this ebook
Hazelnut Ring Cake, for example, can be served on its own at teatime, as it was in the Reagan White House; or, with the addition of espresso-flavored whipped cream and a crown of caramelized phyllo, can become the memorable culmination of an elegant dinner party. Chocolate Dome Cake (one of the Carters' favorites) can be topped with raspberry glaze, served with Grand Marnier mousse, or spangled with berries. Blueberry Upside-Down Cake with yogurt sauce is a light treat for a long weekend morning; the cherry version, with its lattice of whipped cream, will delight children and adults alike, and the truly grand Peach and Spice Upside-Down Cake with Brioche "Peaches" is a show-stopping confection, elegant enough for the Clintons to serve to the chancellor of Germany and the prime minister of England.
Even on the most important ocassions, Chef Mesnier believes that desserts don't have to be filled with butter and cream. Recipes like the wheat-free Carrot Cake, the dairy-free Orange Sherbert Cake with Glazed Oranges, and the low-fat Apricot Soufflé Cake with Apricot Grand Marnier Sauce satisfy guests with special dietary concerns but still meet Roland's exacting standards for taste and presentation.
The easy-to-follow instructions for these time-tested recipes anticipate pitfalls and offer sensible suggestions for when it is worth to invest in high-end ingredients and equipment and when you can get by without them, and how to peel and slice fruit for the most attractive results. With Chef Mesnier taking you through every step of each carefully constructed recipe, you can be sure that your cakes will be delicious and spectacular every time.
Soon you will have mastered the basic recipes and a few of the more advanced techniques, and you will be able to develop a repertoire of your own. like Chef Mesnier, you'll be able to tailor your desserts to the tastes of your guests or the spirit of a celebration. Whether the table is lit by tapers and laid with your best silver or you are serving a few friends Sunday supper in the kitchen, you will be able to create sophisticated mouthwatering desserts that your guests will remember for weeks to come.
Roland Mesnier
Roland Mesnier is the former Executive Pastry Chef of the White House. He developed the first professional pastry program in the Washington, D.C., area, at L'Académie de Cuisine, in Bethesda, Maryland. He is also the honorary president of the World Cup of Pastry, and every year L'Académie de Cuisine awards a scholarship in his name. He lives in Virginia.
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Roland Mesnier's Basic to Beautiful Cakes - Roland Mesnier
INTRODUCTION
I grew up in a rural French town in the 1940s. I was one of nine children; our family didn’t have much money. My father worked for the railroad, in the maintenance department. My mother also worked for the railroad: Whenever a train was approaching, a bell would ring in our house; my mother would run out to the tracks that crossed the road where our house stood and close the gates on either side so that the dairy farmers leading their cows across the track from the pasture to the farm for milking four times a day wouldn’t be in danger. She did this job seven days a week, from 5:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night, and if she had to leave the house, one of us kids would have to be there to listen for the bell and close the gates.
The house where I grew up had no oven. We bought bread at the village bakery, but we couldn’t afford to buy cake there. Maybe three or four times a year on special occasions—a religious confirmation or a brother’s return from military service—my mother would make her famous mocha cake, a simple genoise, with rough flour from the local mill and eggs from our own chickens. She baked it on top of the stove in a covered cast-iron pan. Her buttercream had just three ingredients: pure, rich country butter from the farm next door, confectioners’ sugar, and coffee, for which she had to scrimp and save. I cannot exaggerate our excitement when she would bring this lopsided but wonderfully fragrant cake to the table. It was her pride to be able to produce, with so few resources, something so delicious. She presented it with much feeling, and was rewarded with our shouts of anticipation and our moans of enjoyment as we savored every bite.
I thought often of those intimate celebratory moments throughout my career, as I tried to create the same excitement and emotion with my desserts, first as a pastry chef in restaurants and hotels throughout Europe and the U.S. and then as White House pastry chef for twenty-five years. Looking back, I have to say that while the spectacular State Dinner desserts I created as tributes to foreign governments were received with admiration, it was the cakes I made to celebrate personal occasions—like birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and weddings—that elicited the most heartfelt feeling.
At the White House, I made cakes for presidents, their families, and their guests—a disparate group including Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Prime Minister Nakasone of Japan, and Bob Hope. Each cake was designed with the guest of honor in mind. In June of 2006 I was called out of retirement to design a birthday cake for George W. Bush, who was turning sixty. I decorated the cake with sugar pieces representing the important places and moments in his life: the house in Midland, Texas, where he was born; his graduation from Yale; a Texas Rangers cap to represent his purchase of the baseball team; the emblem of Austin, where he was governor; and 1600, the number of acres of his ranch and the address of the White House. My longtime assistant Susie Morrison and I wheeled the cake to his table, and I knew it would be the last one I would make for a president. When he studied it, he had tears in his eyes. I felt it was a job well done.
Cakes, Basic to Beautiful
I may have known only one cake as a child, but in my professional life I pride myself on making a new cake to commemorate each occasion, and to do so with ease. I was so lucky with my job at the White House. Unlike most pastry chefs, who produce the same menu items over and over again, maybe changing a few desserts with the seasons, I had no set menu and no fixed repertoire. My work demanded just the opposite—it called for a never-ending stream of new desserts. It was a challenge, but it was also my favorite part of the job. I was always thinking, always learning.
When I brought a cake to the table, I wanted to surprise people with something that they had never seen before. But it was never purely a matter of changing the appearance of a cake. Over the years, I experimented with and reworked every cake, filling, and frosting recipe I knew, so that I really owned them. I’ve probably made upside-down cake fifty different ways, and the version I present here takes all of that experience into account.
When I was writing my first book, Dessert University, I included just a handful of the hundreds of cakes I made during my time at the White House. They were some of my favorites, but there were many more, so special to me for so many reasons, that wouldn’t fit. I knew then that I’d write a book devoted to the subject. In it, I’d not only have room for many more recipes, but I’d be able to reveal the secrets to making new cakes for every occasion. I always felt a little guilty when people wondered at my ability, after so many years, to come up with brand-new cakes, sometimes at a moment’s notice. The fact is that I rely on a surprisingly small file of basic, foolproof recipes, perfected over the course of my long career. These foundation recipes allow me to experiment with new flavor and texture combinations and to build new cakes with confidence. Take my genoise recipe, which is not much different from my mother’s: I use it for my upside-down cakes because it absorbs the juices from the fruit so beautifully. It forms the layers in the First Ladies’ Strawberry Cake, a strawberries-and-whipped-cream extravaganza. When I add some instant espresso powder to the batter, it becomes Coffee Genoise, which can be served as is, covered with Chocolate Mousse, or covered with Mocha Buttercream, depending on the occasion.
But genoise alone cannot sustain a pastry chef’s career. A successful cake baker keeps his or her audience and the occasion in mind. Does the guest of honor love moist chocolate cakes? I turn to my Chocolate Soufflé Cake and go from there. Are they allergic to wheat and dairy? Carrot cake made with spelt flour is the place to start. Is the chocolate cake going to be served at a barbecue or a black-tie dinner? Is the carrot cake for a ladies’ luncheon or for a family reunion with a lot of kids? The occasion will dictate how a cake is filled, frosted, and decorated.
This book gathers together more than twenty of my favorite basic cakes, the ones I turned to time and again when designing something new. They’re loosely organized into the categories that made sense to me as I developed my repertoire: American
-style cakes that I learned to bake at the White House, like yellow cake, banana cake, and applesauce cake; three very different styles of cheesecake that saw me through countless occasions; cakes with nuts and chocolate, an essential category for any pastry chef; cakes for people with dietary restrictions. At the end of the book I return to my French roots, with recipes for cakes made with puff pastry and pâte à choux.
When I decided to write a book about cakes, I didn’t want to make it just another collection of recipes. I wanted to show how a pastry chef thinks, using experience and imagination to spin old desserts into new ones. So in this book, each recipe is really a series of three recipes that increase in complexity. For example, the modest Hazelnut Ring Tea Cake becomes a rich dinner party dessert when glazed with shiny chocolate. It can be transformed further into a grand birthday cake (originally designed for President Reagan) with the addition of whipped cream and some caramelized phyllo as a crowning decoration. By reading through each version of the recipe, you will see how I could serve the same basic cake one day at a Senators’ Spouses Tea and then a few weeks later at President Reagan’s birthday gala, and collect compliments on both occasions for two very different desserts.
Wherever possible, I describe the inspiration behind a particular recipe. I hope that once you’ve read about how I used my most reliable recipes to create cakes tailored to the needs of five Presidents and First Ladies, their families, and their guests, you will recognize some that are right for your own occasions, from casual dinners to birthdays, holidays, and even weddings. After you gain confidence with the techniques, you may even want to design your own cakes. Using some of my building blocks and your own creativity, you can certainly come up with a custom cake that’s just right for you.
How to Read the Recipes
Since my retirement, I’ve taught dozens of cooking classes across the country, and I would say that the biggest mistake home cooks make when baking doesn’t have anything to do with technique. It is a simple problem of misreading the recipe directions or not reading them at all. People tend to hurry through the beginning of a recipe—the headnote, the ingredients list, and the early reminders to preheat the oven, grease the pans, and set the racks in a certain position in the oven. Everyone wants to rush right to the fun part, where you blend the eggs, sugar, and flour together.
But headnotes often contain tips that will help you avoid mistakes that others (including myself) have made in the past. The ingredients list is the tool you need to organize, and good organization is one key to success. And those early instructions are there for a reason: An unheated oven will slow you down, and you don’t want to be searching for the correct pan at the last minute.
So take a few minutes to read the recipe properly, starting at the very beginning, with the title and the yield. Go through the ingredients list with a pencil and paper and make your shopping list, double-checking to see if you really do have pantry items that you always
have on hand. Then read the instructions through carefully, making sure you understand the sequence and the timing. Is there a component of the cake that needs to be refrigerated for 24 hours? Is there a subrecipe that is printed elsewhere in the book? Know about these things so you’re not caught by surprise—and without dessert.
Finally, outline the recipe on paper, jotting down the major steps, to test yourself. If you get confused constructing this short outline, reread the recipe and try again. Most cakes consist of at least two components, and some have many more. Breaking down the recipe before you begin will help you to see the big picture, which is important when undertaking a construction project like a cake.
As you work your way through, consult the recipe often, to remind yourself of the details. Forgetting an ingredient or a small step can spell disaster, as it did for me once when I was a young apprentice, exhausted from working long hours and staying out late at the lively bars in Hamburg. One morning, I was horrified to see that the eggs I had prepared for a giant pot of pastry cream were curdling instantly as I whisked the hot milk into the pot. What on earth was going on? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the box of cornstarch I had taken out of the pantry but had never measured into my eggs. Without it, the eggs never had a chance. As the chef walked toward me, I stood squarely in front of the pot and hoped he wouldn’t ask what I was hiding. Then when he turned away, I threw the whole batch in the garbage, completely humiliated and ashamed. From then on, I made it part of my routine, no matter how simple the recipe, to check and double-check my ingredients and instructions as I proceeded.
Ingredients for Cakes
One of the most compelling reasons to bake your own cakes instead of buying them from a bakery is the control you have over what goes into them. You can choose your favorite brand of chocolate, the vanilla extract you find most fragrant, apples and berries from the local farmers’ market. It goes without saying that the best-quality ingredients will produce the best cakes. Buy your eggs, butter, nuts, and flour at a grocery story with a high turnover and store them properly for the freshest flavor. I love the new organic products that are found everywhere, but I’m careful to purchase them from busy markets and not off dusty shelves of a health food store that does a bigger business in vitamins than in vegetables.
Gather all of your ingredients on the counter before you start putting them together. This way, you will know if you are short one egg well before you need to add the eggs to the mixer. If the ingredients list calls for chopped nuts, chop them now, so that you’ll be ready with them later. Pay special attention when the recipe calls for room-temperature ingredients, and after you’ve gathered everything, let these ingredients stand until they really do come to room temperature. If your butter, eggs, and milk are cold, it will be difficult to blend them into a smooth batter. Improperly blended ingredients will result in a heavy, dense cake instead of a light, airy one.
Occasionally a recipe will call for an uncommon item—praline paste or hazelnut flour, for example—which can be mail-ordered or purchased online. But for the most part the ingredients you will need are available at the supermarket, with an occasional trip to the specialty foods store. In fact, it can seem almost miraculous that so many different types of cakes can be conjured from so few basic ingredients. Here is a list of the items that appear over and over again. Individual recipes will give you more information on unusual ingredients.
BUTTER All of the recipes in this book were tested with unsalted butter. It has a purer, fresher taste than salted butter. When a dessert needs salt, it’s better to add it separately. Higher-fat European butter is expensive, and I honestly cannot detect a significant difference in cakes baked with it, so I stick with good-quality supermarket butter. Well wrapped, it will keep in the refrigerator for weeks (unwrapped, it might pick up off-odors from the refrigerator). For longer storage, keep it in the freezer. Defrost frozen butter on the countertop for several hours or in the refrigerator overnight. To soften refrigerated butter, let it stand on the counter until pliable—15 to 20 minutes, depending on how warm your kitchen is. To hasten the softening, cut it into pieces, but don’t soften it in the microwave or you’ll risk melting it.
CHOCOLATE When it comes to making most chocolate cakes, I use semisweet and bittersweet chocolate instead of unsweetened baking chocolate. I have found through experience and experimentation that unsweetened chocolate can produce a cake with a slightly bitter taste, which some people like but most don’t. The choice of semisweet or bittersweet, as well as the brand, is really up to you. Semisweet chocolate has a milder flavor that some people prefer; bittersweet is deeper and more intense. I absolutely love Valrhona chocolate, and at the White House I used it almost exclusively. But this is a matter of opinion, and if you like Callebaut, Lindt, Ghirardelli, or any other high-quality brand for eating, you will also like it in a cake.
Some chocolate cake batters, such as the biscuit macaroon for the Chocolate Dome Cake, are so light that they would deflate if combined with melted chocolate. In these cases, I gently fold in unsweetened cocoa powder for chocolate flavor. Dutch cocoa has been processed so the acids have been neutralized, giving it, in my opinion, a milder and more pleasant taste. It is my personal preference. But if you like non-alkalized cocoa powder, such as Hershey’s, that’s fine; it will work in any of these recipes. If you are not sure which type you like, use the cocoa powder you like for hot chocolate. Tasting it this way, with just milk and sugar added, will give you a good idea of the character it will lend to cakes.
For mousses, ganaches, and glazes, I stick with semisweet chocolate for its middle-of-the-road flavor. Semisweet chocolate will produce a mousse, ganache, or glaze with a rich, chocolatey flavor that is not overly intense. This was always important when I had to please a roomful of people with different tastes, not to mention political views! Of course, if you know that everyone eating your cake is a dark chocolate fanatic, go ahead and use bittersweet or even extra-bittersweet. It’s a matter of knowing your audience.
Occasionally I call for tempered chocolate to be used in cake decorations. Tempering is the process by which chocolate is gently melted so that when it solidifies again it will still be beautifully shiny rather than grainy and gray. For this task, I use couverture chocolate, which contains a relatively high proportion of cocoa solids and cocoa butter, giving it rich flavor and its characteristic shine. Couverture chocolate is the luxurious chocolate made by such upscale manufacturers as Lindt, Valrhona, and Callebaut. You can find 3-or 4-ounce bars of it wrapped in foil and sold for eating out of hand in gourmet shops and candy stores. You can buy it this way, but since tempering requires at least 1 pound of chocolate, it’s cheaper to buy couverture chocolate in bulk, either at a specialty foods store or online (see Resources, Chapter: Resources).
CRÈME FRAÎCHE A heavy cream that has been thickened and given a slightly tangy taste through the addition of a lactic bacteria culture such as buttermilk or lemon juice. It is possible to make crème fraîche at home, but the process can take up to 24 hours and the results are not uniform. I always buy it at the supermarket, for convenience and reliability.
EGGS All of the recipes in this book were tested with U.S. grade large eggs. There is no nutritional or flavor difference between brown and white, so I usually choose whichever is cheaper. I do make sure to buy my eggs at a supermarket with a quick turnover, for the sake of freshness. But the fact is that it takes a very long time, months usually, for refrigerated eggs to go bad. Moreover, older egg whites whip up higher than very fresh ones.
There are several recipes in this book that call for raw egg whites. Although most of the time, any dangerous bacteria reside in the yolks or on the shells, it is best to err on the side of caution: Raw eggs, including whites, should not be used in food to be consumed by children, the elderly, pregnant women, or anyone in poor health or with a compromised immune system, due to the remote chance that the eggs are contaminated with salmonella. For more on egg safety, see Chapter Introduction.
FLOUR Flour is categorized by its protein content, which gives cakes their structure. You may find it odd that I rarely call for cake flour, which has the smallest amount of protein, for the cake recipes here. In my experience, cake flour is just too soft for most cakes! I use it when I want to produce very tender baked goods—biscuits and sometimes muffins and occasionally very tender cakes. But in general cakes made with cake flour can fall apart when sliced, and can sag under the weight of even the lightest fillings and frostings.
In recent years, I have met more and more people who are allergic to wheat. For them, spelt flour, made from an ancient variety of wheat that rarely causes an allergic reaction, is a godsend. Spelt flour can be substituted for wheat flour in many cakes in this book, including Perfect Yellow Cake (Chapter 1) and Chocolate Dome Cake (Chapter 16). Spelt flour doesn’t require as much liquid as wheat flour for hydration, so you’ll need more of it if you want to use it in place of wheat flour. Use 25 percent more spelt flour for a similarly balanced recipe.
Occasionally I use hazelnut or almond flour in a cake. Nut flours are not really flours at all, but nuts ground into a fine powder. They contribute flavor, but not structure, to a cake. To bring out the best in nut flour, toast it on a baking sheet in