Strawberry shortcake is a timeless classic. Try to cook it according to one of our recipes - and your family will put this dish on the list of their favorites! A recipe with a photo will help you quickly and easily prepare a delicious strawberry sponge cake. The biscuit is a favorite of many housewives, because it is very easy to prepare, even if...

It’s hard to believe, but just a couple of centuries ago this super popular, tasty and healthy berry simply did not exist in the world! In cooking, strawberries are used to prepare jams, preserves, compotes, sauces, jellies, marmalade, liqueurs, liqueurs, tinctures, wine, syrups and used in baking. But in addition to the amazing taste, strawberries also have more...

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Liza Glinskaya is a universally recognized culinary specialist. Her desserts are finger-licking good! And now Lisa will teach you how to cook an amazing sponge cake with delicate, airy, sweet and sour pomegranate mousse. Try...

COOKING METHOD

Pour boiling water over almonds for 2 minutes. Drain the water and rinse the nuts with cold water. Peel the almonds.

Dry the almonds with a paper towel. Grind it in a coffee grinder into flour. Mix with 100 g of powdered sugar.

Pour cold water into a saucepan, add 370 powdered sugar and lemon juice, bring to 118°C. Pour the syrup into the almond flour. Mix. Pass the mixture through a meat grinder.

Mix the mixture with your hands and make a dense bullet. If necessary, add a little cold water. Wrap in film.

Leave for 10 minutes at room temperature.

Sponge cake with marzipan

INGREDIENTS

  • Marzipan - 1.25 kg
  • Eggs - 4 pcs.
  • Flour - 150 g
  • Sugar - 150 g
  • Vanilla sugar - 10 g
  • Butter - 20 g
  • Cream (30%) - 300 ml
  • Powdered sugar - 30 g
  • Canned peaches - 100 g
  • Beetroot - 100 g
  • Blueberries - 100 g
  • Cherry - 100 g

COOKING METHOD

Line a baking pan with parchment and grease it with butter.

Separate the whites from the yolks. Add sugar and vanilla sugar to the yolks. Grind everything until light in color. Beat the egg whites and sugar with a mixer until foamy.

Add yolks to whites. Mix until smooth, gradually adding flour. Place the dough into the mold. Bake the biscuit in the oven at 180°C for 30 minutes.

Beat the cream with a mixer with powdered sugar into cream.

Cut the biscuit in half lengthwise. Grease the bottom of the biscuit with cream. Place canned peaches, cut into cubes, on top.

Cover with the second half of the biscuit. Grease the top and sides of the cake with cream. Place in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Prepare food coloring.

For red color, grate the beets and squeeze out the juice.

For pink - squeeze cherry juice, for blue - blueberries.

Take some marzipan and divide it into 3 parts. We divide each part in half. Add dye to one and mix.

Add the second part of white marzipan and knead until the color is uniform. We do this with all the parts to paint them different colors.

Let's decorate.

Roll out the white marzipan into a layer, cut into 6 long and 20 short strips. We weave the strips into two layers, forming a basket.

Cover the sides of the cake with the basket. Roll out each piece of colored marzipan into a layer, cut out circles and form roses out of them.

Place the roses on the top of the cake so that there are no gaps.

Roll out two thin ropes from the remaining marzipan, weave them and place them below around the cake.

Mix water and sugar, sprinkle the cake with syrup.

See also (“Everything will be delicious!”)

On New Year's Eve, you want to surprise your loved ones with a famous dessert, but you think that you can only learn how to cook an exquisite cake at an expensive master class at a culinary school? Lisa Glinskaya shared her cooking secrets with us, and now you can prepare the famous French Opera cake yourself - simply and effortlessly!

Preparation

Biscuit
Preheat the oven to 200℃.

Beat the whites, then add sugar and beat again.

Mix dry ingredients. Beat eggs with sugar, add melted butter and flour mixture. To stir thoroughly.

Add whipped whites, mix gently.

Divide the dough into 3 parts.

Cover the pan with parchment and spread the dough on it.

Bake for 5-6 minutes at 200℃.

Ganache
Heat the cream in a saucepan (until steam appears) and pour into the chocolate broken into pieces.

Mix thoroughly and cool.

Coffee syrup
Mix water with sugar, bring to a boil. Add coffee, cool.

Cream
Mix water with sugar, bring to a temperature of 116℃, pour syrup over the yolks beaten with sugar.

Add instant coffee, beat and add cold butter.

Beat until creamy.

Glaze
Heat the cream and add to the chopped chocolate.

Add butter and mix thoroughly.

Then, as needed, dilute with sugar syrup until the glaze is shiny.

Assembling the cake
Melt the chocolate in a water bath.

Cut out squares from the cakes.

Coat the bottom layer with chocolate and cool (2-3 minutes).

Place crust on parchment paper, chocolate side down.

Soak the cakes with coffee syrup.

Apply butter cream on top.

Top with the next layer and cover with ganache.

Grease the next cake layer with buttercream.

Place in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Remove the cake from the refrigerator and frost it, then return it to the refrigerator.

Using a hot knife, trim the edges of the cake to 0.5 cm and use dark chocolate to write “Opera”.

Bon appetit!

Liza Glinskaya told how to prepare a vanilla-chocolate Zebra cake that would be appropriate for any table, a favorite of children and adults.

Preparation

Prepare a baking dish: grease the bottom with butter, cover with parchment, apply a thin layer of butter on top and dust with flour. Whisk the remaining flour.

Melt the butter in the oven. Pour the top layer – clarified butter – into a separate bowl and let cool.

Beat the eggs with sugar into a white thick mass. Add sour cream and clarified butter to it, and then flour mixed with baking powder, soda and salt.

Divide the dough into 2 equal parts. Add cocoa to one of them. Pour 2 tbsp into the center of the baking dish. l. white dough. Then pour 2 tbsp into the center of the white dough. l. chocolate.

Alternate layers until you run out of dough. Optional: Use a wooden skewer to give the cake a flower-like design.

Cover the pan with foil and place in an oven preheated to 160 degrees. Bake for 40-45 minutes until a toothpick comes out dry. Leave the cake to cool in the switched off oven.

Hello!
Not long ago I was lucky enough to attend a master class by the winner of the Master Chef show, Lisa Glinskaya.
Many thanks to the wonderful girl Oksana for sending me the necessary link)))!
At the master class, Lisa prepared the “Opera” cake according to the classic recipe and her author’s “Opera: currant-coconut”.
"Opera" is a French classic, it's something that, in my opinion, you need to be able to do. Therefore, out of the 4 proposed programs, I chose “Opera”.
First about the atmosphere.
On the way to Ivano-Frankivsk, I imagined that I would come now, and everyone there would be so smart and skilled and a complete professional, and only I would stand, blink my eyes and peep at other people’s notes)) In reality, everything turned out to be much simpler)) The crowd was diverse, there were also professionals who, apparently, came to master classes not for the first time and knew a lot (or pretended to)), there were also people like me, who without special education, know something from the Internet and books, and even (who can praise me if I’m not myself))) they can do something. There were also those who had education, but no practice. But we were all united by the desire to learn - and this is the main thing.
In a word, the atmosphere was friendly and comfortable.
Now about those who created the atmosphere.
First of all, of course, about Lisa.
Lisa is open to communication, demanding of herself and her students, and ready to share her knowledge. She really loves what she does. She is a very purposeful and persistent person. It seemed to me that it was quite easy to learn from her, since she completely devotes herself to the process, answers all questions and describes all processes in detail.
Special thanks to Tatyana! Tanyusha provides the material part of the work, organizes master classes, purchases ingredients, and helps prepare work places.
Vera - Liza's right hand behind the work surface. Everything is clear, correct and on time, everything is at hand at the right time.

For home cooking, I chose the classic Opera because I had already tried to make it according to the recipe presented on my favorite French site MEILLEURduCHEF.com
But, unfortunately, the cake was not a success for me (((The glaze flowed, the ganache was very hard, the buttercream did not whip up and it turned out very greasy and very sweet.
That’s why I decided to make this cake again, using all the knowledge I received at MK.

This cake can be assembled either with or without a frame. Assembling without a frame is certainly more difficult, but we are not looking for easy ways. Is it true?))))
Let's start with the Mona Lisa biscuit.
Ingredients for a layer measuring 40x60cm:
200 g eggs;
120 g sugar;
60 g wheat flour (sifted);
120 g almond flour (sifted);
40 g butter (melt);
120 g egg white;
50 g sugar.
In a separate container, whisk together the two types of flour.
Lightly beat the eggs with sugar (120 g), add melted butter to the eggs.
Add the flour mixture to the butter-egg mixture and stir.
Beat the whites and 50 g of sugar until they form a bird's beak (when turning, the whipped whites should not fall out of the container).
Add the whites in portions to the egg-flour mixture, mix carefully with a spatula, without fanaticism. The result should be a homogeneous, airy mass.
Pour the dough onto a silicone mat, smooth it out, and “lift” the edge of the dough with your finger so that it doesn’t burn. The process of raising the dough looks something like this: you need to run your fingertip along the edge of the dough so that this edge turns from a “sloping bank” into a “cliff”.
To bake plastic biscuits, I use this silicone mat with sides; let me tell you, it’s extremely comfortable.

The height of the biscuit layer should be about 4 mm.
Gioconda is the kind of sponge cake that you can safely open when baking, as it “doesn’t risk falling.”
We check the readiness of the biscuit like this: when you press the biscuit with your finger, the hole immediately levels out and the biscuit springs back.

Bake at 190°C for 8-10 minutes, depending on the oven and whether it has a convection function.
You can cut out two whole rectangles from the layer and form one from pieces (it will go into the middle of the cake). You can cut the biscuit only after it has cooled completely.
One of the whole sponge layers needs to be covered on one side with melted dark or milk chocolate in order to protect the soaked bottom layer of the cake from getting soggy.
So, the biscuit is ready, put it aside.

The MK recipe and the process of preparing coffee extract were very useful for me. You yourself understand that buying something that you can make yourself is, to say the least, impractical))

Coffee extract.
Ingredients:
250 g sugar;
125 ml water;
125 g instant coffee + 125 ml boiling water = brew.
Make dark caramel from sugar and 125 ml water. To do this, keep it dry! first pour the sugar into the saucepan, trying not to get it on the walls of the saucepan, otherwise this sugar will burn on the walls later. Next, pour water into the saucepan, put it on high heat, DO NOT stir, bring to dark caramel, the main thing is DO NOT BURN, otherwise you will have to redo it.
Remove the caramel from the heat and add the brewed coffee to it. Be careful, it will spit! Mix thoroughly. Store in a glass container with a tightly closed lid at room temperature. Shelf-life Unlimited))

Next we do syrup for impregnation of biscuit.
Ingredients:
300 ml water;
200 g sugar;
30 g coffee extract.
As an option, you can add rum, liqueur, and fruit syrups to the impregnation for other cakes. If the additive is sweet, then the amount of water should be greater than the amount of sugar; if the additive is unsweetened, then water = sugar.
Our additive is sweet and therefore there is more water.
Boil water with sugar until the sugar dissolves (if the additive is alcoholic, then boil with it for another 30 seconds), remove from heat, add coffee extract.
Set aside.

Now let's prepare the ganache.
Ganache.
Ingredients:
150 g dark chocolate (70%-72%);
150 cream (fat content not less than 30%).

Heat the cream in a saucepan until a light whitish steam begins to rise above it.
Place the chocolate in a tall glass from an immersion blender.
Pour hot cream over the chocolate, let stand for a minute so that the chocolate floats slightly, then mix with a spatula and beat with an immersion blender so that no air bubbles form. To do this, you need to immerse the foot of the blender in a glass with ganache and make several pushing movements so that an air bubble pops out from under the blade, which would form there as if under a glass if it was lowered into water upside down. As soon as the bubble pops out, you can turn on the blender, the sound should come from the glass dull, then you can be sure that all the air has been pushed out. A loud sound means that the blender blade is crumbling the air ((When whipping, do not move the blender foot, the blades of the knife themselves will pass all the ganache through themselves and make it homogeneous.
Cover the finished ganache with cling film and set aside. Do not put in the refrigerator, store at room temperature. In principle, the ganache can be stored in the refrigerator if you do not assemble the cake on the same day, but before assembling it will need to be heated in a water bath to operating temperature and the desired degree of fluidity.

Next stage butter cream.
Ingredients:
120 g sugar;
40 ml water;
4 yolks;
180 g butter (cut into 1.5 x 1.5 cm cubes, chilled);
20 ml coffee extract.
To prepare this cream, first we need to make a "pâte à bombe".))
To do this, place the yolks in a mixer bowl and begin to beat. At the same time, set the syrup to boil: sugar + water in a saucepan = cook until 116 ® or until “soft ball”.
Lisa showed us in person what a soft ball is, and other stages of sugar syrup. It’s one thing to read in a book that there should be a thin thread or a thick thread, a soft ball, etc., but it’s a completely different thing to see all this with your own eyes.
So, as soon as you reach the state of a soft ball))) we begin to gradually pour the syrup into the whipping yolks in a thin stream along the wall of the bowl. Beat the yolks until the temperature of the mixture is equal to body temperature, that is, if you smear the mixture on your wrist, you will not feel the temperature difference. Add coffee extract to the still warm mixture.
As soon as the mixture reaches the desired temperature (37%), gradually, one piece at a time, add butter to it and continue to beat. This process is labor-intensive for a mixer and time-consuming. If the mixer needs to rest, place the bowl with the mixture in the refrigerator and then continue beating. Here we say hello to the happy owners of professional kitchen appliances))) At first, the mixture will spread and splash in the mixer bowl, but then, lo and behold!, it will thicken and turn into a thick and airy cream. For this process to be successful, the temperature in the kitchen should be quite low.

After preparing the cream, you need to immediately start assembling the cake, since in a warm kitchen the cream floats, and when it is placed in the refrigerator, grains of solidified butter form in it.
Before assembling, thoroughly soak the biscuit layers. You need to soak it very generously, so that the sponge cake is wet through, soak the layer with the chocolate bottom a little less.
If we assemble the cake in a frame (cover the frame on one side with cling film), then assemble it upside down: ½ part of the cream - soaked sponge cake - ganache - soaked sponge cake - ½ part of the cream - soaked sponge cake, chocolate side up.
If we assemble without a frame: soaked sponge cake with chocolate side on the work surface - ½ part of cream - soaked sponge cake - ganache - soaked sponge cake - ½ part of cream. In this case, the top layer of cream must be very carefully leveled so that the glaze can then lie evenly on it.
The layers of cream and ganache should be about 4 mm, so that the cake is about 3 cm high.
Place the assembled cake in the freezer for at least 3 hours.

During this time we do
Chocolate ganache glaze.
Ingredients:
250 ml cream (30% fat);
250 g dark chocolate;
40 g glucose syrup (can be replaced with honey or invert syrup);
50 g butter;
90 ml syrup 30®B (100 ml water + 140 g sugar = combine in a saucepan, heat until sugar dissolves and remove from heat).
Combine the cream, glucose syrup, and 30®B syrup in a saucepan and heat until the glucose syrup dissolves.
Place the chocolate in a tall glass from a blender, pour in melted hot butter, then pour in hot cream, let stand for 1 minute, stir with a spatula and beat with a submersible blender, being careful not to create air bubbles.
If it seems that the glaze is very thick, then it can be brought to a fluid consistency with warm syrup.
Cover the vkontakt with cling film and leave to cool to operating temperature (37-38®).

Remove the cake from the freezer, remove the frame (if you assembled it in one), and to do this, lightly warm the sides of the frame with a torch or a warm towel. Place the cake on the container in which you will glaze it. I do this: I take a deep baking tray, line it with cling film, place a salad bowl with a bottom diameter smaller than the area of ​​the cake upside down in the middle and place the cake on this salad bowl.
Glaze: pour most of the glaze onto the surface of the cake and with light, smooth, continuous movements from one edge of the cake to the other, level the glaze over the surface. We don’t glaze the sides, since we’ll be trimming them anyway.
Place the cake in the refrigerator, let it thaw slightly and trim the edges. This is done with a large, wide and very sharp knife, in one cutting motion. After each cut, wipe the knife thoroughly.
The Opera is decorated with the inscription OPERA, which can be made with cornet cream stored in advance.
Here is a photo of what I got.


I’ll tell you right away about my mistakes.
Firstly, I soaked the biscuit poorly, I needed even more, secondly, I laid out the layers unevenly, so the cut turned out to be “not a fountain”, thirdly, you need to cut it clearly in one motion, for which you need a suitable knife - sad thing (( but I don’t have it. But.. it didn’t affect the taste)))
I will definitely strive for the ideal and I will definitely show and tell you this process.
And here is what they did at MK.

Bon appetit!