Opera Cake

This is a cake that was popularized at the French Pâtisserie Dalloyau in the early 1900's. It was then called L'Opéra, but it was and still is a multi layered thin layers of cake soaked in coffee and then layered with coffee flavoured buttercream and ganache. It really is quite a sweet and lovely little cake that is very visually appealing.

This formula is adapted from the Michel Suas Book Advanced Bread and Pastry, A Professional Approach, Pg. 719Formula:
4 7/8 oz.  Coffee French Buttercream
2# Strong coffee
One half sheet, thinly sliced Jaconde Sponge
6 oz. Chocolate ganache
2.5#  Glacage opera
4 oz. Melted Chocolate
2 oz. Pate glace


MOP: assembly
Petits four: glace

• Take cooled jaconde sponge and sprinkle sugar on top, generously before turning it out on to parchment.
• Cut the sponge in even layers. For a bigger make up or for a whole cake, cut the sponge into two even layers. For a smaller make up, for petits four size (aprox. 1 1/2" x 1 1/2") cut the sponge into three even layers. The procedure for a small make up and large make up are similar, and fills can be various. I'll describe the small make up as the way we did it has the more components then the large make up we decided to do in class.

The corners dont have to be perfectly
enrobed because you will cut away
the sides like in brownies. This shows
the layers really well though.

• Turn the sponges over, you want to assemble the cake upside down. Paint melted pâte glace in a thin layer on one third panel of sponge. Let this set up in the blast chiller.
• Take the set up sponge and place it pâte glace side down on parchment on a cake board.
• Soak the sponge in coffee using a pastry brush. Make sure to not over soak the sponge or else the next layer will start to slip when spreading.
• Spread a thin layer of coffee flavoured buttercream on top of the soaked sponge.

• Let set up in the blast chiller if necessary. Place another sheet of sponge on top.
• Soak the second sponge in coffee identical to the last sponge. Spread a thin layer of ganache (or you can just use buttercream again, or a gelatin set mousse can also be used for the upper level as it does not need to support a lot of weight).
• Place the last layer of sponge on top. Soak this with coffee and spread a very thin layer of the coffee flavoured buttercream on top. Let this set up in the blast chiller.
• If you are doing a large make up enrobe the whole cake in chocolate glacage (your dont need to worry about the sides in the large make up because you will cut this away for presentation). If you are doing a small make up you can enrobe the whole cake to achieve a reveal during the final make up. Or you can cut the cake down to strips to achieve a partial reveal on two sides. 
• Let this set up in the blast chiller.
• For the smaller make ups, use a hot knife to cut it down to smaller pieces, 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" is a good proportionate width to height size.

A traditional finish for the large make up is pictured below: Opera is written in cursive with melted chocolate and a staff with a treble cleft and notes is piped below that. Traditional finishes for the 

smaller ones include notes, treble cleft, two base clefts, a division sign on an angle, other piped designs, etc.