Faux Opera Gateau – A MasterChef Tribute

In tribute of the Masterchef Australia finale tonight, and our monthly cookoffs organised by PetiteValse of Berry Travels, and not to mention my insatiable sweet tooth, I threw together a dessert from the leftovers I had in the fridge and freezer.  It was quick and cheap (relatively), and just enough to tide me over from last night’s banquet.  So, allez cuisine!

Our theme for this month’s cookoff was French, a cuisine dear to PV’s heart, and one that she had set her eyes on ever since inviting myself and Celina from Fables in Fashion to participate.  You’ll have to wait for PV’s full writeup, but suffice to say we both took inspiration from the Gateau Opera, a seven layer coffee and chocolate cake featured in Masterclass #11.

PV took in the most ambitious task of making the actual gateau.  I decided to make a macaron duet, two types of macaron based on Callum Hann’s recipe, featured in the London Invention test.  Instead of violet cream, however, I decided to make a vanilla macaron with coffee cream cheese filling, and a mint macaron with dark chocolate ganache filling.  To make my macarons, I used two parts of the Gateau Opera recipe – the coffee extract (to make my cream cheese filling) and ganache.

The macarons themselves were a huge success, especially since it was my first time making them.  But this post is about what I did after.

I almost always have frozen puff pastry on hand – it’s probably one of the most versatile ingredients in any kitchen for both savoury and sweet.  I simply cut the pastry into strips and baked them for 12 minutes at 220C.

I put some of the leftover coffee extract in a small container.

And glazed the pastry strips while they were still hot.

To make the cream cheese frosting:

1. Let the cream cheese come to room temperature and soften a bit.
2. Whip the cream cheese with hand beaters or a stand mixer with beater paddle.
3. While the cheese is being whipped, drizzle in coffee extract to taste.  I love a strong flavour, so I used nearly 1/4 cup.
4. If needed, add sugar to balance the flavour.  I used about one tablespoon of vanilla sugar.

Let the ganache soften to room temperature as well.  Mine was too hard to spread nicely, so I basically just crumbled it instead.

Layer the pastry, frosting then ganache in layers.  You could go as high as you like, but I feel two layers is just nice enough to fit easily into your mouth.  I ate mine straightaway, but you could wrap them in clingwrap and put them into the fridge to firm up the frosting.

Et voilà.  Of course, it wasn’t as lovely as PW’s real gateau, but the cream cheese frosting made it not quite as guilt- or sugar high-inducing, while still reminding me of that wonderful flavour. 

Are you doing anything for the Masterchef finale?  Or have you made any of the recipes from this series?