Showing posts with label Chocolate Ganache. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chocolate Ganache. Show all posts

Friday, July 8, 2011

Zebra Cake


Comment – Salty’s seafood restaurant in Portland, OR serves amazing desserts, one of which is the Zebra Cake. It has layers of chocolate cake and thickened whip cream covered in chocolate ganache. I found assembly instructions for a similar triangle cake online and decided to try recreating Salty’s dessert at home. It turned out wonderful. Although, the cake was a little difficult and time consuming to make. The Zebra cake served at Salty’s has wider layers of whip cream. I like the appearance of their cake a little better and plan to double the whip cream mixture I use next time. It would be easier to make this cake with different cake layers or frosting, but I think the thickened homemade whip cream layer is worth the extra effort.


Assembly instructions – link 1

Assembly instructions – link 2

Note – I baked 2 chocolate cakes in a 15 by 10 inch pan. I used 4 cups of chocolate cake batter for each cake and baked them at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. I used two cups of homemade whip cream thickened with gelatin between each layer. I would recommend whipping up at least 4 cups of heavy cream, which makes about 8 cups of whipping cream. I whipped up 3 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream and ran a little short toward the end. I used about 10 Tbsp powdered sugar to sweeten up the whip cream I made. The coating is a ganache mixture of 2 cups chocolate chips, 6 Tbsp heavy cream and 2 Tbsp butter. This cake recipe makes a really long triangle. Next time I make it I will probably only bake one cake, cut it in 4 equal rectangles and fill each layer with 2 cups whip cream (The filling layer will be wider since the cake will be a shorter).

Bignoli ~ Italian Dessert

Comment – I saw bignoli desserts in restaurants and bakeries when we were in Italy. When I came home I looked up recipes for it online and found one written in Italian. I had to use google translate to view it. I found out that the dessert consists of stacked cream puffs filled with vanilla custard, covered in chocolate ganache with whip cream decorations. I had made cream puffs before and decided to stick to my original recipe for them. The dessert turned out delicious and I would recommend it to anyone.
Pastry recipe(To find the recipe, follow the link, look at the Eclair post. you’ll find the recipe there listed as Pate a Choux)

Pastry Cream Recipe
Chocolate Ganache
3 cups chocolate (I used milk chocolate because its my favorite)
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
Over low heat, melt chocolate with butter. When melted add in cream, and vanilla.
Serve this dessert chilled or frozen.