The Opéra cake is one of my favourite cakes. I had never made it before today's practical class, but I used to buy it from the Lindt Chocolate Shop at Martin Place (when I was working in Sydney), so I know quite well what it should taste like.
The Opéra cake is rectangular in shape and basically has seven thin layers altogether. The total height of the cake should not exceed 4cm (or 1.5 inch). The seven layers are (starting from the bottom): joconde biscuit (generously imbibed with coffee syrup), coffee buttercream, imbibed joconde biscuit, chocolate ganache, imbibed joconde biscuit, coffee buttercream, and finally, chocolate glazing on top.
[Aside: It has come to my attention that readers of my blog see the word "biscuit" mentioned in my blog all the time and they think it means the dry, crunchy biscuits you buy from the supermarket. Actually, when I talk about biscuit (French pronunciation: "bis-kwee") in my blog, it refers to a type of soft sponge cake in French pastry. And joconde biscuit is a thin layer of almond sponge cake.]
Here's the Opéra cake I made:
The pattern on top of the cake was specified by Chef N, who told us this was the traditional pattern on an Opéra cake. Chef N insisted we include the accent mark on the "e" in Opéra (I forgot mine until a classmate reminded me). We had to serve a full-size cake, an individual portion, and some smaller pieces as petits fours. Chef N had taught us the techniques for cutting up the cake into individual portions and petits fours, so he wanted to check we could do it properly.
The feedback I got from Chef N was that I pretty much got all the major elements right in my Opéra cake. The taste, texture, glazing, imbibing, height of the cake, layering and so on were all fine. My cutting skills were still not quite up to scratch yet -- the right-hand side of my cake was not cut straight, and detracted from the presentation slightly.
Oh yes, Chef N told me I did well in my Intermediate Pastry written exam (worth 10% of total course marks) yesterday, with a score of over 95 out of 100. I was pleasantly surprised, and glad that my written exam marks will help make up for the low marks I got for some of my disastrous practicals (e.g. the Marquise au Chocolat and the Millefeuille).
All in all, it was a good day for me... I have another practical first thing tomorrow morning. We are making the Triple Chocolate Bavaroise (mousse cake). I hope it goes well.
