Entremets? Entre-maybe nots…

Anyone who knows me well may be surprised by the following sentence.

This was the first year I’d ever watched the Great British Bake Off. I know, right? Me? Enjoyer of baking, eater of baked goods and television watcher extraordinaire. Plus, I’ve always liked Sue Perkins when she’s been on QI.

I honestly don’t know why I’ve never watched the show before – at least not in the last couple of years when we’ve had the technical ability to record shows and watch them later (thanks, Sky Box).

Anyway, this year I did watch it and I absolutely loved it. I missed the drama of baked Alaska-gate because I was in America at the time, but at least the DVR let me catch up on the action. I was sad when Martha left (not really surprised – but the girl managed to do her exams AND GBBO. She deserved some sort of award!) And I completely fell in love with the entremets Richard made in the semifinal.

For those who don’t know what an entremet is (I sure didn’t), they are elaborate little desserts. Richard’s grapefruit entremets, for example, had a lovely pink polka-dotted sponge, with beautifully defined layers of mousse and other lovely things inside.

Watching from the comfort of my sofa, I oggled at how stunning the desserts on display were… but I also thought to myself (as you do): “I could do that.” Even though Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood went on and on about how much skill these things required.

One of them even said something about how entremets could stress out even the most experienced of French pastry chefs. “Whatever,” I scoffed at the television screen, sleeping baby in my arms. “It’s just a bit of cake, jelly and mousse.”

For the next few weeks, I kept dreaming up different flavour combinations that I could use in my own entremets – whenever the time came that I’d have sufficient reason to make them, that is. “Thursday afternoon” didn’t really seem just cause for something so fancy.

Then my samples of the new Angel Delight bubblegum flavour arrived in the post. Maybe this was the chance I’d been waiting for! I started thinking about ways I could assemble an entremet using Angel Delight.

I also started looking for shortcuts. While I really do love cooking, having a nine-month old baby in the house doesn’t really give me much opportunity to make delicate sponges, jellies and other items that need my complete attention. Plus, I wanted something that I could share on my blog as something anybody could make. So, I opted for a few pre-made products that I’m sure would make Mary Berry very cross.

What I came up with were Strawberry-Bubblegum entremets: sponge base and ‘wrapper’ filled with Angel Delight and strawberry jelly, then topped with white chocolate ganache – using shortcuts wherever possible.

This meant all I needed were: a box of cake mix (and the extras it required – eggs, oil and water), food colouring, a tub of pre-made jelly, the Angel Delight (and milk) and cream and white chocolate for the ganache. Fresh strawberries for the garnish.

Oh, and it turned out I needed sprinkles too. Lots and lots of sprinkles.

I started out by making the cake mix following the instructions on the box.

Then I separated out a small amount of batter and added pink food colouring.

I put the tinted batter into a resealable bag (it helps to drape the bag over a pint glass). Then I drew some stripes as guides on the back of a sheet of baking parchment and placed the parchment on a baking sheet.

I snipped off the tip of the tiniest bit from the corner of the bag and used it to pipe the stripes on the parchment. Then, I put the sheet in the freezer to set.

While the sheet pan was chilling, I made up the Angel Delight. Again, I put it into a plastic bag so that I could pipe it later.

I also prepared the glasses I planned to use as moulds by lining them with parchment paper.

I then pulled the stripes out of the freezer and poured most of the remaining cake batter over the top, spreading it out evenly. There was enough left to make about six cupcakes too.

It went into the oven for about 10 minutes. When I pulled it out, I let it cool, then flipped it over and pulled off the baking parchment.

Then I stood back and admired the beautiful pink stripes, feeling very pleased with myself.

The next step was to trim the cake and line the moulds.This meant cutting the cake into strips, removing a layer to make it nice and thin and cutting out a small circle of cake too.

Then, I rolled up the strips and put them into the moulds, removing any extra and then pressing the circle of cake into the bottom.

Next, I piped in the Angel delight.

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I added slices of the pre-made jelly.

And then they went back into the fridge while I made the ganache.

This is when things started going wrong.

I don’t know what happened. I’ve made ganache a hundred times before. It always turns out well. All I can think is I’ve never made it with white chocolate. Maybe white chocolate reacts differently. All I know is that mine didn’t set.  At all. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

This is what I did: I melted white chocolate and double cream together. Then, I let the mixture cool and thicken up slightly before pouring it into the moulds. Then everything went back in the fridge to set overnight.

I expected to check on them in the morning and find them with a nice, solid layer of white chocolate on the top – like a little cap over the striped cake.

Instead, the unset ganache had spent the night soaking into the cake, smearing the stripes and turning everything a bit oozy.

Boo.

I pulled the first one out, realising what had happened, but feeling confident that it would be mostly okay.

Nope.

It splattered out of the mould and collapsed into a gooey pile on the beautiful new chopping board I had just bought for photographing food.

I slopped it all into a bowl, and munched on it while I thought about what to do next.

I’d spent all that time making the little b@$+@%*s, and the mush I was eating did taste good – actually, really good. The flavours worked very well together. No way was all that work going to waste. My inner blogger was determined to get a post out of the experience. And that meant pictures.

So, the three remaining moulds went into the freezer. I pulled one out about fifteen minutes later to see how it was doing. Solid enough to hold its shape, I thought, but not so hard I couldn’t eat it.

I carefully pulled it out of the mould and put it into a dessert bowl. It immediately started to flatten out. Certainly not as pretty as I’d hoped. Buuut, a few sprinkles helped make it a bit more photogenic.

Then, I decided to cut it open to show off all the beautiful layers inside.

See? See how lovely and defined the layers are?

No? Okay, well, do you see how the white chocolate is gracefully oozing down over the jelly like the Blob over a small town in rural America? Argh! More sprinkles!

Ah, that’s better.

I decided to give the other two plenty of time to freeze before I tried photographing them. I took my sprinkly gloop, retrieved the recently woken baby from her cot and headed to the living room. She played happily on the floor and I had a pretty serious mope/sugar fix – having eaten another, slightly sloppier dessert less than an hour earlier.

A couple of days later, I finally got up the courage to face the remaining two entremets. It took a bit of hot water to release them from the moulds, but they held their shape well, even when I sliced them open.

They were rock-hard, so freezing certainly wasn’t a viable solution if I actually wanted to serve them.

But, at least I got to pretend that I’d made something really lovely, with gorgeous layers and stripey sponge as I photographed them. Eat your heart out, GBBO!

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Disclaimer: I was sent two packs of Angel Delight in return for a blog post. All opinions are my own. You can see my more successful Bubblegum Pinwheel cookies here.

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