I am back from my little heaven called the Danube Delta. This little corner of the world, the newest land of Europe is my “place”. I just love the peacefulness that surrounds it, the endless blue sky, the lonely birds flying high and the permanent taste of vast amounts of water and green plants that get you dizzy with their freshness.
The Danube Delta is the reason why I abandoned my blog lately. For the past weeks I went back home, to Romania for a short holiday. Luckily enough I went on a small trip to the Danube Delta, very close to Murighiol on a charming and welcoming floating hotel (http://www.sageata-apei.ro/) , in the middle of the running waters of the Danube. I will not start telling you about the amazing food I had during this trip, it consisted of various fish dishes, all married with home-grown veggies in a perfect harmony that matched the gorgeousness of this place.
And because I abandoned my blog for so long, I decided to make a little coming back cake that reminds me of the summer and of fresh sunny days.
vanilla sponge with blackberry and lime curd mousse
Vanilla sponge
3 eggs, separated
125 gr sugar
80 gr flour
50 ml milk
vanilla
Separate the eggs and set the whites aside. Mix the egg yolks with the sugar and vanilla until thick, creamy and it doubles in volume. Add the flour and mix it gently with a spatula until the flour is totally incorporated.
Beat the egg whites until it forms stiff peaks. Gently incorporate the egg whites into the batter.
Bake the sponge into a baking pan lined with parchment paper in the oven at 170C for about 15-20 minutes. The sponge is ready when the testing stick comes out clean or the cake returns to its shape when softy pressed. Set the sponge aside and let it cool down.
Lime curd mousse
4 egg yolks
1/4 cups lime juice
120 gr sugar
150 gr butter
200 ml whipped cream
Mix the egg yolks with sugar and lime juice in a bowl. Place the bowl over simmering water and boil the mixture whisking continuously until it starts thickening and coats the back of a spoon (about 10 minutes). Do not overcook the curd, otherwise it would become scrambled eggs and it will start smelling of bad omelet. Set aside and start incorporating gradually the cold butter. Transfer in a clean bowl, cover it with cling film and let it cool down in a freezer.
To make the mousse – mix 2/3 or the entire quantity of curd with 200 ml of whipped cream.
Blackberry mousse
200 grams blackberry
5 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons of water
350 ml whipped cream
3 sheets of gelatine
Place the gelatine for 10 minutes in cold water. Meanwhile mix the blackberries with water and sugar and boil them over slow fire until the mixture reaches a syrupy consistency. Set aside and let it cool down for few minutes and then incorporate the gelatine into the mixture. When it cools down mix it throughly with the whipped cream.
To assemble the cake just use your imagination, I cut my sponges in two equal disks, placed the blackberry mouse in between the two halves and covered everything with the lime curd and decorated it with tempered chocolate, strawberries and blueberries.
Beautiful photo… just wanted to stop and say thanks for being such an active part of erecipecards… Love your recipes…
All of your recipes show up here…
http://erecipecards.com/account/userrecipes.php?id=107
Great body of work (so far)… Keep submitting 😉
Dave
Hi Dave,
thanks for dropping by. I will do my best to be a bit more active in the future on erecipecards.com :-), hopefully with nice recipes as well.
The cake is so beautiful – like you brought it back from heaven 😀
Thanks Jun!
Wow, that looks like a piece of art that cake! Can I ask how you managed to put that layer of chocolate around the cake like that? I recently did a similar thing where the chocolate was put on a strip of baking paper and then wrapped around the cake, but yours looks prettier for sure. Just curious to know how you made it!
Hi Simone, thanks for stopping by. I totally love your blog, I learned few tricks from you :-). About the chocolate wrapping – I spread some tempered chocolate on a sheet of baking paper that had the right dimensions to fit around the cake, waited for about 10 minutes until it reached a more solid consistency and then wrapped it around the cake. At this point I could make it look like wrinkled paper and gave it the shape I wanted. Afterwards, I just placed it in the fridge until it reached a hard consistency and maintained its shape. After about 20-30 minutes I just detached the baking paper . Veel succes!
Thanks so much for the instructions! I’m definitely gonna try this as I like the wrinkled look even better then the straight one… I’ll let you know how it goes!
Super inmifratove writing; keep it up.
I prefer my old routines, i avoid fresh starts until i´m forced to face them. Like when my computer crashes and i lose all my links and favorites, =) i usually don´t miss them, but i can´t make myself clean anyhow.best wishes, Linda xo
Such a pretty cake! I love the chocolate wrapping, it adds a nice sophisticated touch.
Thanks Jane !
The Danube Delta?! I can’t even imagine so I’m glad you have these lovely photos. And the cake! I had no idea it was chocolate at first. It looks so light and fragile. Beautiful!!
Hi Emilia, Your Vanilla sponge with blackberry and lime curd mousse recipe has been selected to be featured in a Recipe Guessing Game. Please share the following link with your friends and fans. To play, go here: http://knapkins.com/guess_games/274?source=blog Congrats again!! 🙂
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