Cooking Delights: Chocolate Genoise with fruit and pastry cream filling

Amitesh 's birthday cake

Ingredients :
Cake flour - 1/2 cup or 65 gms - ( to make cake flour - 3/4 cup or 85 gms of all purpose flour + 2 tbsp of cornflour = 1 cup of cake flour ( sieved ),
Unsweetened cocoa pwd - 1/3 cup or 30 gms,
Eggs - 4 ,
Sugar powdered - 2/3 cup or 135 gms ,
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp,
Hot melted butter - 3 tbsp or 42 gms.

Method :
Pre heat oven to 180 C .
Butter a 8 inch pan and line with butter paper
In a bowl sift flour and cocoa pwd together and keep aside in a bowl.

In a heat proof pan whisk eggs and sugar and place over simmering water and whisking constantly until the mixture is thick ( about 5 minutes ).

Remove from heat and transfer this mixture to the bowl of your electric mixture.

Beat on high speed about 3 to 5 minutes until the egg mixture has cooled , risen in volume and looks like softly whipped cream ( this is very important as we are not using baking powder or soda for this batter and egg has to be beaten well ).

Beat in the vanilla essence .

Using a wooden spoon or spatula ( use a flat spatula to fold otherwise the batter will deflate ) fold in 1/3 of the flour cocoa mixture over the egg mixture.
Fold in half of the flour and then fold in the rest .
Do not over mix or the batter will inflate.
Take about 1 cup of the batter and fold it into the hot butter mixture .

Then with a spatula ,gently fold the butter mixture completely into the egg batter .
Pour into the prepared pan ,smoothing the top.

Bake till cake shrinks slightly from the edges of the pan and the top springs back when lightly pressed .( 25 to 30 minutes )
( tooth pick inserted in the center will comes out clean )
Cool on a wire rack.
When the cake has cooled completely run a knife around the edges to release the cake.

Keep in the fridge to harden, then slice it into half .( 8 hours to overnight )
Since my cake was 1 inch in height , had to slice it into 1/2 inch each.

For slicing the cake into half, measure with a scale and then insert toothpicks at a distance of 3 inches apart .
Use a long serrated knife and carefully run the knife at the edges by pressing your left hand on top of the cake and gently slicing around till the it is evenly sliced .

Place a tart pan bottom disc or a straight plate to place the lower half of the cake .I have used the base of the tart pan for keeping both the slices.
If your top disk is uneven place it at the bottom and the bottom will be on top.

Pastry cream :
Milk - 300 ml or 1 and 1/4 cup,
Egg yolk - 3 ,
Sugar powdered - 1/4 cup or 50 gms,
Flour - 2 tbsp or 30 gms,
Cornstarch - 2 tbsp or 30 gms,
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp.

Cream - 1/4 cup whisked - optional.

Mix sugar and yolk together .

Sift cornflour and yolk together and then add to the egg mixture. Mix until smooth paste .

In a saucepan bring the milk just to boil .

Remove from heat and slowly add the milk in stages to egg mixture and whisking constantly with a whisk or wooden spoon to prevent curdling .
When 1/ 4 part of milk is left in the pan ,pour the egg milk mixture again back into the saucepan.

Transfer the saucepan again on low heat and simmer for 1 minute until boiling ,whisking constantly until it becomes thick .

Remove from heat and add 1 tsp of vanilla essence and then sieve it through a strainer to remove any lumps .
Cover with a cling film.
Cool to room temperature.

Put in the fridge to set .The cream can be kept for 3 days in the fridge .
Before you spoon the pastry cream on the cake slice beat it for few seconds so that there are no lumps.
You can add 1/4 cup of whisked cream to the pastry cream to make it lighter .

Chocolate ganache :

Semi sweet or bitter sweet chocolate - 227 gms,
Cream - 3/4 cup or 180 ml ,
Butter - 28 gms or 2 tbsp.

Place chopped chocolate in a heat proof bowl .
Heat cream and butter in medium heat and bring just to boil.

Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 5 minutes.
Stir until smooth.
You can microwave the cream butter mixture ( 1 minute )

Fruits

I have used kiwis ,pineapple, apple and cherries.You can choose your own fruits.

Orange juice - 2 tbsp.

Assemble :

Place a hard disc under the cake as it is to lift the cake and transfer to a plate.
Place the bottom slice of cake on a wire rack as the dripping of the ganache will be collected at the bottom tray.( you can use it to make chocolate truffles by making small round balls and dust it with cocoa pwd - can add nuts too:)).
Spoon two 2 tbsp of orange juice on the bottom cake slice as it will keep the cake moist .

Then spoon the pastry cream in the center leaving an inch at the border .

Decorate the fruits on top according to your liking.

Cover it with the top slice of the cake.
Pour 1/2 cup of ganache on top and by using a knife, coat it all over the cake including the edges and sides.

Use more if required .
This will be the first coating of the cake.

Put the cake in the fridge for an hour for the ganache coating to dry.( with the tray )

Take out from fridge and pour all the ganache in the center of the cake .

With the knife spread the ganache all over and let it drip at the edges so that the cake is fully covered with the shinny glaze of ganache ( dripping will fall in the tray below ).

Slightly lift the cake once so that it will be not stick as it will be easy to lift the cake afterwards.
Put the cake back on the tray and then place it in the fridge for an hour .
Take out from fridge and transfer the cake to your serving plate.