French Mango Cake : "TWD : Baking with Julia"

When it comes to recipes from the Julia Child baking bible, I follow the recipe to the last word. I am still a novice baker, finding my way around and haven't yet developed the confidence to play around with recipes. It's also my way of giving the true blue baking recipes a shot, something I would normally be tempted to give a miss considering all the fuss and emphasis on technique that usually accompany them. But then there are recipes like today's where adapting the recipe has been the only way!! But am getting a bit ahead of myself...

This week's recipe for our bake-together was the French Strawberry Cake. That's when I faced my first hurdle. Strawberries are long gone from the Indian market with January-March being strawberry season for us. So, I turned to the one fruit that takes over our fruit markets during the summer - the mango!! I figured its soft texture would make it a suitable substitution for strawberries and a good seasonal choice!!

"What's french about this cake??", you ask. Well, for the cake we turn to a 'perfect genoise' batter and as the book points out, "...the genoise is to a French baker what the sponge cake is to the American baker...". It's also, apparently, the first cake a French patissier learns to make!!

However, in practical terms, it also means this cake does not use any leavening agent like baking powder/soda to help it rise. It does that with the help of the eggs or rather, should I say, on how well you beat the eggs. For the baking technician, that would be beating the eggs till you get '10-second ribbons'...so, in case, you haven't figured it out, this cake is all about technique, technique and technique!! Should you get the technique wrong, be prepared for your cake to fall flat, literally!!!

So, I followed this part of the recipe to the last word and the results were good - the cake rose, did not sink and maintained its height even after cooling down. But, after this the script well all awry. The recipe demands three layers out of this cake i.e. each layer would be a centimetre high. With temperatures soaring and an absolute lack of confidence in my skills, I stuck to two.

And then the recipe asked that we fill the layers with the fruit and cream and then cover the cake on the top and its sides with more cream and if that wasn't enough, we also had to pipe cream rosettes for decoration. For someone who is not a big fan of cream, I read on in absolute horror!!

But, my problem was something even more fundamental. To cover the cake with cream, we need to whip it and for that we need double cream, something that is not easily available in India in the packaged form. All we get is packaged low-fat cream which just can not be whipped into submission. Many a home baker before me has tried and failed... and as for yours truly, I tried whipping the cream for close to an hour before finally throwing in the towel in utter exasperation and frustration!!

With no choice left, I simple decided to sandwich a layer of mango and cream between the two layers and then dust some icing sugar on top. The heat (the temperature that day was 41 deg C), the excessive emphasis on the technique of how the cake had to be made and then my run-in with the cream, I was more than happy to be just done with this recipe!!!

My verdict - for all the fuss that this recipe demands, the cake, I felt, did not live up to the hype!! It felt a tad dry and the mango with its syrup did not do much to help the situation. Maybe the berries would have been better. And while I did not use all the cream as specified, I am not sure I even missed it. I doubt that much cream would have been appreciated in this weather. Not that this cake was bad but I'd say I've had better!!!

Due to copyright considerations, only the person hosting the recipe for the group 'TWD:Baking with Julia' can post the recipe on their blog. The recipe for this French Cake will be available on the blogs of Sophia and Allison. Alternately, you can write to me at bakerindisguise@gmail.com and I will mail you the recipe.