Easter Cake Easter Nest by Christophe Felder: Holiday Cake

Easter cake “Easter nest” is a thematic masterpiece of a holiday table. Cake with three layers of airy biscuits, mousseline cream and sprinkled roasted almonds will please you and treat your senses! It is a cake to still the show!

We celebrate the Easter holiday twice: the catholic and orthodox ones. The more reasons to celebrate, the more Easter cakes are on the table, the more recipes of Easter teats to share with you. My Mom lives in Russia and follows Orthodox traditions to celebrate Easter. Every year, she decorates about 40-60 eggs (yes, this number! I am not exaggerating!) and buys candies. Starting from 6 AM on the Easter holiday, kids in groups of three to six knock at doors and wait for gifts. Each kid gets an Easter egg and some candies. In my Mom’s case, this continues until the decorated eggs are gone. I still keep the tradition of eggs’ decoration, but I do not go for 40-60 eggs! Just a few of them are boiled and wrapped in a special heat shrink sleeves.

WHAT ARE TRADITIONAL EASTER DESSERTS?

Each country has its own Easter celebration dessert. The upside-down cake TARTE TATIN is a popular choice for Easter celebrations in France. The fluted round cake – Polish babka – is served at Easter time in Poland. Hot cross buns are traditionally served in the U.K., Ireland, and Australia on Good Friday. Italian Easter wouldn’t be complete without the sweet bread Colomba di Pasqua. Kulich is the Orthodox sweet bread served in Bulgaria, Georgia, and Russia. In Greece, the brioche-like bread Tsoureki is always on the Easter holiday table. The fruitcake – Simnel cake – is a popular English treat on Easter. CARROT CAKE is a traditional Easter cake in the United States.

WHAT IS THE BEST EASTER CAKE?

Easter cake is a mandatory sweet part of a holiday table. What distinguishes the Easter cake from other holiday cakes? The straightforward answer probably is Easter cake decorations. Everything starts from a classic Easter bunny cake and the Easter bunny’s favorite snack – carrots. Sweet Cross cake and Lamb Easter cake are other traditionally shaped cakes. Decorate your favorite cake with candy eggs and filaments of white or dark chocolate resembling nest, and you will get the best Easter cake.

HOW TO MAKE EASTER CAKE – EASTER NEST?

The base of the Easter cake resembling the Easter nest is a bundt cake sliced into three parts. Soak each part of the biscuit with the flavored sugar syrup and cover with the mousseline cream. Sprinkle the cake with flaked roasted almonds and decorate with the white chocolate filaments resembling nest. Place candy or small chocolate eggs on top of this Easter cake.

Ingredients:

For the biscuit:

• 110 g flour
• 150 g caster sugar (50 g + 100 g)
• 30 g corn starch
• 5 eggs
• 6 g baking powder *
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract * or lemon (lime) zest

For the syrup to soak the biscuit:

• 120 g water
• 70 g sugar
• 20 g Kirsch (or vanilla)

For the pastry cream:

• 200 g whole milk
• 2 vanilla beans *
• 2 egg yolks
• 45 g caster sugar
• 15 g corn starch
• 5 g flour

For the extra butter cream:

• 1 egg
• 100 g sugar
• 50 g water
• 1 tsp Kirsch
• 125 g butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract *

For the decoration:

• 100 g flaked almonds
• 100 g white chocolate
• candy eggs

Instructions:

Heat oven to 355 degrees F/180 C.

To prepare the biscuit,  sift the flour, corn starch and baking powder *. Break the eggs and separate the egg yolks from the whites. Whisk the egg yolks with 50 g of caster sugar until they become whitish.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a mixer. When the whites are mounted, gradually pour the remaining sugar (100 g) to get the egg whites firm and glossy. Then add the vanilla extract * or lemon (lime) zest.

Gently mix the egg whites with the yolks/sugar mixture with a rubber spatula *…

then add the sifted flour/starch/baking powder * mixture and gently mix all the ingredients.

Butter and flour a bundt cake mold and pour the dough into the mold.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Test the readiness of the biscuit with a knife (a sharp knife tip should come out dry). Let it cool.

To make the sugar syrup, mix the water, sugar, Kirsch and place aside.

To make the pastry ream, bring 150 g of milk to a boil, infuse the vanilla beans * (ideally 1 hour!). In a separate bowl, mix egg yolks, remaining milk, sugar, flour and corn starch. Stir in this hot milk mixture and bring to a boil again., constantly stirring. Once the cream thickens, pour the cream on a plate and cover with a food film. Cool the pastry cream quickly to 85 F/30 C, placing in the fridge.

To make the extra butter cream, heat the sugar and water in a saucepan to 250 F/120 C. Break the egg into a bowl, pour the syrup over the egg and whisk for about 10 minutes until the mixture becomes whitish.

Add the softened butter and whisk the cream for 10 minutes with a mixer to aerate it as much as possible. Heat it a little bit if it is too compact, or on the contrary, cool it if it is too soft.  Add the Kirsch and vanilla. The cream should be smooth and homogeneous.

To obtain the vanilla mousseline cream, whisk the extra butter cream for 5 minutes. Add the pastry cream little by little into the extra butter cream and whisk. Place aside.

To assemble the Easter cake, cut the cooled biscuit in 3 equal and regular parts with a serrated knife. Generously soak each slice of biscuit with the sugar syrup. Then spread the vanilla mousseline cream in the middle of the first biscuit and smooth with a stainless steel spatula. Cover with the second part of the biscuit and soak again with syrup and cream. When the assembly is finished, spread over the remaining mousseline cream with a stainless steel spatula. Smooth the edges of the biscuit while turning the spatula around the Easter cake.

Apply the roasted flaked almonds over the cream.

To make chocolate filaments, melt the white chocolate in a bain-marie (or microwave), taking care not to heat it too much (maximum 104 F/40 C). Stir it to bring the temperature down to 85 F/30 c (you should not feel any difference in the temperature, touching with your finger). Place the chocolate in a piping bag with a very small plane tip. Freeze a plate, take it out of the freezer. Place it upside down on the work surface and make some chocolate filaments, making a dozen round trips on the back of the plate with the pipping bag.

Let the chocolate freeze for a few seconds (be careful, it goes fast). Then using the spatula, peel off one of the sides. Then rotate the strands in your hands to form a small nest, and lay it on top of the Easter cake by pressing heavily. Repeat the process as many times as you like. If necessary, use the other plate if the first has warmed up. Then stick a few decoration eggs with the remaining melted chocolate.

Tips:

• To roast flaked almonds, place them in the oven at 355 F/180 C for 10 minutes.
• Replace Kirsch (cherry brandy) by any fruit-based brandy. For kids, replace the alcohol with the same amount of any juice.
• Make Kirsch brandy from Cherry brandy essence (20 ml). Pour the contents of the bottle and 1-1/4 cups of granulated sugar into an empty one litter bottle. Add 770 ml of neutral vodka. Shake very well until the sugar has completely dissolved.

LOOKING FOR MORE EASTER DESSERT IDEAS?

• Carrot Cake by Yotam Ottolenghi
• Moist Carrot Loaf Cake with Cashews

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The recipe is taken from http://www.elle.fr and translated from French. It is re-written by me, but the authorship of the recipe belongs to Christophe Felder. All posted pictures are mine.