L’Opéra

This was my debut in the Daring Bakers Challenge. The baking task was the white chocolate l’Opéra, which in this interpretation was not the French classic, to be exact. The shape of the cake and the flavorings were left up to the challengers. While thinking about the flavor to choose I stumbled upon some breathtakingly beautiful pink grapefruits. That’s when I made my choice. I flavored the soaking syrup, buttercream, and the mousse with the grapefruit zest and Pink Grapefruit Liqueur (made in France, by the way) with, surprisingly, very nice, definite grapefruity flavor. It gave the mousse a pleasant light bitterness and very interesting taste. Since the whole white chocolate idea was already quite a deviation from the original, I had let myself to go even further and used Swiss buttercream instead of French one. I baked the joconde in two half-sheet pans, and then cut out three 8-inch rounds. Then I assembled the cake in a ring, mainly because I wanted to pour the mousse on the top before it sets and then let it set undisturbed. This way the mousse preserves its wonderfully light airy texture. As a decoration I placed a white chocolate rose on the top of the cake.