Daring Bakers Challenge 3 - Opéra Cake

So here we are again, it's Daring Bakers time, and this month I really was daring. An opéra cake is something I would NEVER have made, in my wildest dreams no matter how much I would have wanted to and read the recipe. I can now make my own nut flours - I made pistachio for this. I can make a sugar syrup, which hile not the most technical of recipes is something I have never made before. I have finally found a butter cream that I like aswell.

I'm not going to post the full recipe as it's posted on plenty of other blogs and you can see it here on Ivonne's blog Cream Puffs in Venice but here's what I did that make my cake different:

• I made pistachio flour - ground pistachios pulverised with a tsp flour for each 100g pistachios - smells AMAZING and everyone should try this!!!! I will definitel be making nut flour again.

• I used rose flavouring for my buttercream so 3 tbsp rosewater in total but to be honest I could have used more, I also coloured my buttercream with some cochinelle colouring to make it the rose pink.

• I made a cardamom sugar stock which is amazing, I still have some left and keep smelling it in it's little airtight container in the fridge. Smells like pure heaven for a cardamom addict like me!!!
  

Initially, I wasn't mad about the mousse/ganache or the glaze as I thought they over powered the cake slightly on the first day, the next day however, everything blended together perfectly and the flavours had time to develop. The joconde (read cake here gor those not intiated to the opéra cake layers) had a lovely firm texture which I really liked and the pistachio flavour was gorgeous, really fresh and with the cardamom and hints of rose made me think of exotic far off places!!!


Special thanks to Lis, Ivonne, Fran and Shea for hosting this months amazing challenge - Bring on the June challenge I'm ready!!!!!