Welcome to How To Cook That I am Ann Reardon
In response to lots of requests in the comments we are making a divergent cake today.
You've also been asking for how to make a tiered cake and for a tutorial on how to make
a cake with mousse between the layers so I'm going to combine all of those requests into
the one video.
The cake itself is divergent to match the theme of the book, and now movie of course.
Inside we have a layer of vanilla sponge cake followed by chocolate mousse and chocolate
cake for the dauntless faction, then ice cream mousse for candor, a layer of vanilla cake,
then strawberry mousse for amity, a layer of chocolate cake and then a coating of white
chocolate ganache and fondant decorations.
For the decorations on the cake I have symbols from each of the factions.
And you may be looking at this cake and thinking what on earth are those symbols all about,
well that means that you have not yet read the books.
If you don't have heaps of spare time to read you can download and listen to them from audible.com.
They have all three books there and 150,000 other books.
and for How To Cook That subscribers if you go to audible.com/howtocookthat you can choose
any book you want and get a free 30 day trial membership.
I must say my favourite books to listen to of theirs are dramatized ones that have sound
effects as well as the voices.
Like the star wars ones with the little R2D2 beeps, so you can go there and choose a book.
OK back to making the cake, bake one quantity of my sponge cake recipe and bake it in two
tins, one smaller one and one slightly larger I'll put all the measurements in cm and inches
on the website.
Then repeat that with the chocolate cake recipe.
The videos for both of these cakes are on the youtube channel showing you how to make
them.
I'll link you to the channel at the end of this video.
While they are baking lets make our trees.
The trees are for the Amity or the peaceful faction, I am making them orange, their clothes
are reds and yellows which kind of gives an orange look as a group or people.
Roll out a thick snake of fondant, cut it to the right length and then split it in half
at the top.
Split each of those branches in two.
I think it would be pretty hard to choose a faction, a balance of all of them would
be better than an extreme of one, I guess that would make me divergent.
Then split each of those branches into two again at the top.
If your knife is starting to stick to the fondant rub a little bit of oil on it.
If you were Tris though and it was your choosing day and you had to choose a faction which
one would you have chosen to hide in?
Now we want to roll out an extra branch to stick on the top of the tree.
So roll out a small branch, cut it in half at the top.
Then stick that to the front of the tree.
Take some baking paper and place it under the branch to support it.
Then split the ends of that branch a couple more times.
I made 7 of these each about 13cm tall.
Once the cakes are baked and cooled we need to split them into layers.
This chocolate cake recipe always bakes with a thin layer on the top, it doesn't look pretty
but it tastes amazing and we'll cut that bit off the top anyway so it really doesn't matter.
Take the cake out of the tin and using either a knife or a cake leveler split each cake
into two even layers.
Clean you cake tine and line the base with baking paper using a little butter or margarine
to make it stick.
Then we need to line the sides to make them taller than the tin.
If you have acetate you can use that like it have here.
If not take two clean document protectors and put piece of paper in each and use them
to line the tin, again using some butter to stick them into place.
Use some tape to secure the sides of the plastic so that when we fill it up with the mousse
and the cake it doesn't expand out and make a mess.
Now to make the three mousses
For the strawberry mousse, wash and hull your strawberries and place them into a blender
or into a food processor.
For the written quantities that you need for this recipe go to the website howtocookthat.net
and all the fondant amounts and cake recipes are there too, I'll put a link in the description
below this video.
For the ice cream mousse measure out your ice cream and leave it in a bowl to melt.
For the chocolate mousse pour hot cream over the chocolate, leave it for a moment and then
stir it.
You can of course make just one mousse flavour if you prefer you don't have to make three,
or you could just use frosting between the layers.
Keep stirring until it is smooth.
For the strawberry and melted ice cream take two tablespoons and place it into a smaller
bowl.
Then for the chocolate mousse put two tablespoons of cream into a bowl.
Add a heaped teaspoon of powdered gelatin to each one of those and stir well.
Leave those to sit and the gelatin will absorb the moisture.
Place your egg whites into the bowl of an electric mixer and put the sugar and water
into a saucepan and stir until it is dissolved, wash down the sides of the pan and add a candy
thermometer.
Turn the mixers on to beat the egg whites and by the time they are done the sugar syrup
should be at 238 degrees F, if it is at that temperature before the egg whites are whipped
then just take it off the heat while you wait.
Once the egg whites have soft peaks pour in the hot sugar syrup and leave the mixers running
for about 3 more minutes until your italian meringue looks nice and firm like this.
Split that onto three bowls and leave it to one side.
Then whip the cream up to soft peaks.
Heat up your strawberry gelatin mixture until it is melted.
Warm the larger bowl of strawberry puree in the microwave for about 15 seconds, we don't
want it hot, you just want it slightly warm, about body temperature.
Then mix the melted gelatin into that and tip the whole thing onto 1/3 of the italian
meringue.
Mix this in really well so you don't have any lumps of italian meringue, you can use
a whisk for this if you like.
Then fold in the whipped cream.
This fresh strawberry mousse taste so good, I could eat a bowl of it just on it's own.
Place a layer of chocolate cake at the base of the container.
Try and choose one that is really flat on the top and put that down the bottom with
the flat side down.
Then add 1 1/3 cups strawberry mousse on top and spread it out evenly.
In the larger tin put a layer of chocolate cake just like we did in the smaller one and
the rest of the mousse.
Then add a layer of sponge cake into each tin.
Now for the ice cream mousse.
Melt the gelatin until it is hot then warm the ice cream for 15 seconds in the microwave.
Mix these two together and then combine that with the italian meringue mixing well until
it is combined.
Then fold in the cream just like we did for the strawberry mousse.
Pour about 1 1/3 cups into the smaller tin and the rest into the larger one.
Then add a layer of chocolate cake.
For the chocolate mousse, melt the gelatin and warm the ganache.
Then combined the two of them together stirring it well.
Pour it over the italian meringue and using a whisk mix it together until you can't see
any more lumps of white.
And yes if you want to you can use milk chocolate for this instead of dark I just like the intense
flavour of the dark chocolate.
Then add 1 1/3 cups of mousse over the top.
Add the rest to the larger tin and then add your final layer of cake.
Cover with plastic wrap and leave that in the fridge to set for at least 3 hours, I
left mine overnight.
Trim the top to be level with the cake, add a cake board if you don't have one just cut
a circle out of thick card and cover it in foil.
That will be fine.
Flip the cake over and remove the tin.
Cut the sticky tape and remove the plastic.
You could of course eat the cake just like that but because we want to decorate it using
fondant I am going to cover it in a thin layer of white chocolate ganache.
To make the ganache heat the cream and pout it over the white chocolate.
Leave it for a moment and then stir until smooth.
If you put fondant straight over mousse it will dissolve the underneath layer because
the mousse is so moist and you'll get a sticky liquid oozing from the base of the cake.
Which isn't too big a deal unless you are making a tiered cake like we are, it's going
to mess it up.
So the ganache will give a protective layer or a barrier between the mousse and the fondant
to stop that happening.
So put ganache over both your cakes then put that in the fridge to firm up.
Once it comes out of the fridge you can smooth it out and use any left over ganache to fill
any gaps.
To cover the bottom tier of the cake I am going to make it half black and half white.
The candor faction wear black and white and have scales for their symbol.
Cut a straight edge on your fondant and place it over the cake.
Smooth the edges and trim it at the base and then if it is not quite centered, like mine
is, use a ruler an a knife to trim it up so that it is exactly in the middle.
Now repeat that with the black fondant and place that over the other half.
To make the scales cut a circle and then cut it just below half way.
then cut a couple of thin strips of black.
Cut a piece for the base, the stand and a thinner bit for the arm.
Add the upright piece right on the join of the black and white then add the base and
the arm.
Put the semi circle in place and the two thin strips going up to the arm.
Repeat that using white fondant on the black side.
Now if we place our second cake straight on top the weight of the cake would squash down
the bottom cake.
So what you do is add cake spikes to support the top one.
You can get these at cake decorating stores.
Put one in and mark off where the level it needs to be cut then cut all three to match
that same height.
Then push all three of them back into the cake in a triangle shape.
If you've got a bigger cake then you'd need more cake spikes.
Put that cake back into the fridge while you work on the top one.
Because we've got mousse between the layers it needs to stay refrigerated for the mousse
to stay set firm.
Cover the top cake in light blue fondant and using powdered colour and a dry paint brush,
brush on some yellow followed by some orange for a sun set sort of effect.
Roll out some white fondant and cut and eye shape out, if you don't want to do this free
hand you can print out the logo and use it as a template instead.
Using a little water to stick they eye onto the cake and then use a circle circle cutter
to mark the iris and the pupil
Take some blue gel food colour and paint on the eye lid and the pupil, leaving the white
highlight.
then outline the base and around the iris.
Water down some blue colour and add some at the base and a line under the eye lid to make
it look like a shadow.
Now place that on top of the base cake and you'll see the weight didn't squash the other
cake at all because we have those supports there.
Roll out a thin snake of blue and add it around the join of the two cakes.
Now add your trees.
Use a little water to attach each one to the cake and add them the whole way around.
Roll out some skin coloured fondant and print out the abnegation logo.
I have it on the website in the size I used.
Cut around it and then use your knife to gently indent where the fingers go.
Take the paper off and using black gel colour paint in the outlines.
Use diluted black to paint the shadows.
Add it onto your cake between the two front trees.
To me this looks like such an awkward grip so to make it look more like hands I am using
a straw to add finger nail indents.
Now flames for dauntless, the faction that Tris chose.
Heat sugar and water in a saucepan until it is dissolved.
Then wash down the sides of the pan and let it boil until one area starts to go golden.
Remove it from the heat and mix in some yellow, immediately pour out half of it onto a silpat
or non-stick baking paper.
Mix in red to the remaining syrup and pour it our on either side of the yellow.
Using a knife zig zag across to combine the colours and then drag it at the top to look
like flames.
Do not touch with your fingers as it is extremely hot.
Take an oiled knife and make an indent right down the centre then leave it to cool.
Once it is cold it will be hard and you can break it into shards.
Reheat the sugar left in the sauce pan and use it to coat one side and the base of each
piece and glue them together.
Continue to add more until you are happy with it and then add it to the top of the cake.
If you want to you can also cover the cake board in black fondant like I have done here.
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I'll see you Friday.
Have a great week.