buttercream - make up to 4 days ahead (lemon).

syrup - make up to 7 days ahead (lavender & lemon).

mini cakes, cut with cookie cutters (round, flower, star).

bake cakes in half sheet pans since I only have one jellyroll pan.

Barbara, our May challenge is dedicated to you!įortunately the challenge could be spread out over several days or longer since some of the components could be made ahead. The choice to go light is in honor of Barbara of Winos and Foodies, a former Daring Baker and founder of the Taste of Yellow event, a woman who has struggled with cancer and displays a beautiful spirit. No dark chocolates or coffee flavors, no brown, black, or grey colors. An additional white chocolate mousse was optional, and we could choose the shapes and flavors as long as they were light in color. In this challenge, we had to make the almond cake ( joconde), a buttercream, and a glaze. 'I'm going to try.' Hopefully I sounded more confident than I felt.Īs with all our challenges, we have strict rules to follow and allowances for creativity. 'Remember that television show where the woman wanted to be a pastry chef and she had to make this mondo cake with the G clef design on top and she had so much trouble with it?' So at the beginning of May when the challenge was announced and I saw it was L'Opera, I had a flashback to that woman and her very public struggle and I started sweating. I felt her pain as she struggled with the cake not knowing that a couple years down the road I would REALLY feel her pain! She tries and tries, and with a lot of practice and effort finally gets it right (almost). Her first experience ends in failure and the cake is rejected. She's given a big challenge.make an opera cake.

In this particular episode, a trained chef wants to try out being a pastry chef and she ends up doing a short stint at Porto's Bakery. Until now I've never tasted or made one, though I've seen them in posh bakeries, but I do have a very strong memory regarding opera cake that comes from a certain episode of Your Reality Checked, a show on Fine Living in which participants take time off from their regular jobs/lives to try something new. Think Buche de Noel (Yule Log Cake), or in this case, think.L'Opera! When Ivonne and Lisa, the venerable founders of The Daring Bakers, choose a challenge, you know it's going to be a challenge.

Cuban opera cake