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The Opera Cake Goes Lemon and Lavender

May 27 by Anita 89 Comments

Lemonoperacake3 

When the hosts of the month for Daring Bakers are none other than the intrepid founders themselves, Ivonne and Lis, you know it will be something special indeed. These two lovely ladies who have created the web's most wonderful baking community, along with Fran of Apple Peaches Pumpkin Pie and Shea of Whiskful chose a beautiful and very apropos challenge for all who dare to bake: the Opera cake.

The very first time I made opera cake in pastry school, I felt like I'd scaled a baker's Everest, one made of cake and chocolate and cream and sugar. Like all the hard-core classics of French pâtisserie, opera cake offers a full-scale obstacle course to surmount: whipping egg whites, making joconde, mixing up buttercream, assembling multiple centimeter-thin layers of cake…anyone who finishes an opera cake should certainly feel the happy glow of accomplishment!

There's so much to learn from the opera cake: for example, the joconde is an almond genoise. Genoise is the French form of sponge or chiffon cake; these cakes are distinguished by the lack of leaveners in their batter. The only leavening in these cakes comes from the air whipped into the egg whites or eggs, which gives an added dimension to what's going on when you turn on your mixer. Unlike classic butter cakes, where you simply combine all the ingredients with a bit of baking powder or soda and let the chemicals do their thing in the oven, when making a genoise awareness of your actions becomes paramount. If you don't whip the eggs enough, there won't be enough air in the batter to let it rise. If you fold the ingredients together too roughly or let the batter sit out too long, you risk letting the air bubbles deflate, again losing that critical component of a genoise.

Some may prefer the robust, gloriously thick butter cake of American layer cake fame to the finicky, delicate sheets of genoise, but I find they both have their unique charms. Genoises are essential to the refined elegance of petit fours and other tea-time pastries; with the French penchant for individual-sized cakelets, you need thin, light layers for an effective presentation. The classic opera cake, which is composed of seven layers of cake, buttercream, and ganache, should be less that 1.5 inches total in height, meaning you've got to be pretty precise with all your pieces.

Then there's the buttercream: Ivonne and Lis chose a rich French buttercream for the opera cake filling. French buttercream is always a favorite because of its creamy, buttery flavor, but it can also melt faster because of its high fat content – I think I saw several DBs commenting on the softness of the buttercream. You need to work quickly with this buttercream, and don't be afraid to chill it if it's getting too soft. Myself, I tend to be more partial to the Italian meringue buttercream, because it's more stable and workable, and because it forces me to get over my fears about sugar cookery. Whichever form of buttercream you use, be sure to keep the layers of buttercream about the same thickness as the genoise layers – the genius of opera cake is the balance of textures and flavors between all the various components.
Lemonoperacake

Finally, the top: classic opera cake is indelibly distinguished by its glossy smooth chocolate topping and swooping "l'Opera" writ in chocolate across the surface. But these days, all the classics are being interpreted and re-invented, and it's not surprising to find opera cake in all guises. I have to say one of my favorite versions is still Sadaharu Aoki's matcha version, which I tried to recreate. Ivonne and Lis specified a light-colored theme for the Daring Bakers challenge, and generously let us play around with flavors of our choosing. My mind immediately drifted to a lemon-lavender theme, and that's where I ended up: an opera cake brushed with lemon simple syrup, layered with lemon buttercream, and topped with lavender white chocolate mousse. Sweet, springy, and still lusciously decadent: I'd like to think French would approve of the modifications!

*By the way, for those that had trouble with making the white chocolate ganache mousse, I think the reason is that making a ganache with white chocolate and cream is quite different from making a ganache with dark chocolate. White chocolate is almost all fat, as is cream. Combining so much fat together can be almost impossible; overagitating the mixture will result in a clumpy curdled mess. The best strategy is to keep the cream and chocolate as cool as possible. Whip the cream to soft peaks, and then fold the melted chocolate in by hand. You can chill the mixture in the refrigerator to firm it up; this method is safer than trying to whip the ingredients together.

I always enjoy an opportunity to remake this pastry classic, and I especially enjoyed doing with all my fellow Daring Bakers! Thanks to Ivonne and Lis for creating the DB version of the opera cake – and for  inspiring hundreds of beautiful and scrumptious variants of this fabulous dessert!

This lemon and lavender opera cake is also dedicated to Barbara of winosandfoodies. Barbara is the founder of A Taste of Yellow, and I'm glad to have an appropriately-hued dessert to celebrate LiveStrong Day!

Lemonoperacake2

Tagged with: opera cake + lemon lavender + daring bakers + LiveStrong Day

Bite This!

Filed Under: Cakes, Events, Recipes Tagged With: daring bakers, opera cake

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Comments

  1. 1

    Katie says

    May 28 at 12:39 am

    Your cakes look stunning. I too went the lemon and lavender route, great flavour combo.

    Reply
  2. 2

    Dharm says

    May 28 at 1:00 am

    Your cake looks just fabulous! Great Job!

    Reply
  3. 3

    Rosa says

    May 28 at 1:00 am

    Your cake looks perfect and absolutely delicious! A great combination of flavors!

    Cheers,

    Rosa

    Reply
  4. 4

    Sara, Ms. Adventures in Italy says

    May 28 at 1:12 am

    I love the photo and the little flowers. 🙂

    Reply
  5. 5

    peabody says

    May 28 at 1:42 am

    I knew yours would be fabulous Anita…and I was right.

    Reply
  6. 6

    Baking Soda says

    May 28 at 1:58 am

    Wow! I’m in awe, what a gorgeous professional cake!
    Thanks for the info on all the components, it gave me so much more insight. The only thing I need to find out is why my cakes always fall… as in: always. Sigh.

    Reply
  7. 7

    Aran says

    May 28 at 3:38 am

    Beautiful result! Gorgeous photos!

    Reply
  8. 8

    Clumbsy Cookie says

    May 28 at 3:43 am

    So delicate…

    Reply
  9. 9

    Laura Rebecca says

    May 28 at 4:28 am

    Outstanding! You deserve a standing ovation for your opera cake.

    Reply
  10. 10

    kat says

    May 28 at 4:35 am

    so elegant!

    Reply
  11. 11

    foodie froggy says

    May 28 at 4:48 am

    Amazing, vraiment merveilleux !
    Bravo !
    Anne

    Reply
  12. 12

    dlb says

    May 28 at 5:05 am

    Even though I’m not a member of the Daring Bakers, and probably wouldn’t try making this cake, I really appreciated your description and explanation of all of the methods used and their background. In particular, your explanation about white chocolate ganache was so useful to me as I always seem to end up with a mess! Thanks for the tips!

    Reply
  13. 13

    Dianne says

    May 28 at 6:07 am

    Your cake looks great! I love the tiny flowers.

    Reply
  14. 14

    veron says

    May 28 at 6:26 am

    Looks fabulous Anita! lemon lavender is a fantastic combo!

    Reply
  15. 15

    Maria says

    May 28 at 6:57 am

    Sounds like a lot of work went into this one. It is gorgeous and looks perfect. Great work!

    Reply
  16. 16

    sarah says

    May 28 at 7:41 am

    beautiful. simple. stunning.

    Reply
  17. 17

    sara says

    May 28 at 7:45 am

    Yum! Your Opera cake is so pretty…great combo of flavors!

    Reply
  18. 18

    Susan/Wild Yeast says

    May 28 at 8:16 am

    Beautiful! And thank you for all the words of wisdom on the making of this cake.

    Reply
  19. 19

    Lisa says

    May 28 at 8:44 am

    It’s simply stunning, Anita.. I knew it would be. Yours was one that I’d been waiting all month for. 🙂

    I love the tips in your post as well.. thank you so much!

    Hugs sweetie!
    xoxoxoxo

    Reply
  20. 20

    Ivonne says

    May 28 at 9:08 am

    Anita,

    We’re so glad that you have the opportunity to make this over and over again because you’re so good at it. Really. It’s stunning!

    Reply
  21. 21

    one spicy mama says

    May 28 at 9:15 am

    Those look absolutely perfect! Fantastic job!

    Reply
  22. 22

    Lesley says

    May 28 at 9:15 am

    GORGEOUS! I’m dying to know how you got the top so even and FLAT! Your cake is so pretty. Love the lavender/lemon combo too…

    Reply
  23. 23

    Kim U says

    May 28 at 9:23 am

    Gorgeous!

    Reply
  24. 24

    Patricia Scarpin says

    May 28 at 9:38 am

    They look extremely delicate, Anita. I love the photos!

    Reply
  25. 25

    breadchick says

    May 28 at 9:54 am

    Anita your challenges are always so lovely to look at and I’ll bet the taste even better! Not to mention the lemon and lavender combo sounds particularly light and refreshing.

    Reply
  26. 26

    Faery says

    May 28 at 10:08 am

    Oh my God so beautiful and delicate

    Reply
  27. 27

    kate says

    May 28 at 10:22 am

    lemon lavender is one of my favorite combos. yum! and so pretty!

    Reply
  28. 28

    Lauren says

    May 28 at 10:24 am

    As always, your blog looks delectable!

    Reply
  29. 29

    Medhaa says

    May 28 at 10:51 am

    your cake looks so good, i love the way you have presented it.

    Reply
  30. 30

    Madam Chow says

    May 28 at 11:28 am

    Beautiful cakes! And thank you, thank you for the great tip on the ganache mousse!

    Reply
  31. 31

    Mary says

    May 28 at 11:47 am

    Your cakes look amazing. I love the taste of lavender and lemon.

    Reply
  32. 32

    Jennywenny says

    May 28 at 12:26 pm

    Beautiful, and so neat!

    Reply
  33. 33

    Joy the Baker says

    May 28 at 12:34 pm

    Your cakes look absolutely flawless! Just beautiful! I’m new to your blog, but definitely a new fan! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  34. 34

    Kim says

    May 28 at 12:43 pm

    I love the elegant simplicity of your Opera Cake.Stunning, thanks for the lesson info. Great flavors.

    Reply
  35. 35

    Natalie says

    May 28 at 12:51 pm

    Wow! I also made a lemon opera cake (gluten free) but had trouble with the buttercream. I did not get the symmetry like you did. Thanks for all the great tips. I am sure to get it right next time.

    Reply
  36. 36

    Francijn says

    May 28 at 1:51 pm

    I like your opera cake! It is so neat and subtle.

    Reply
  37. 37

    Hillary says

    May 28 at 1:52 pm

    I love the way you decorated your opera cake! So simple yet elegant.

    Reply
  38. 38

    steph (whisk/spoon) says

    May 28 at 3:30 pm

    looks so beautiful and delicate! and i love your flavor combination…i’m certain the french would approve!

    Reply
  39. 39

    Verena says

    May 28 at 3:43 pm

    your petite lemon lavender opera cakes are just too cute to eat, thumbs up for you! 😀

    making opera cake just involves so many steps that i felt so accomplished too when we made it in pastry school, even though the cake looked ugly.

    Reply
  40. 40

    Lori says

    May 28 at 5:29 pm

    hmmm lemon and lavendar. Great presentation. Very elegant.

    Reply
  41. 41

    maybelles mom says

    May 28 at 5:34 pm

    These are LOVELY. good job.

    Reply
  42. 42

    Sophie says

    May 28 at 6:56 pm

    Thanks for the little tidbit on genoise, I didn’t know that :). Your cake looks elegant and crisp, very nicely done!

    Reply
  43. 43

    Kevin says

    May 28 at 6:59 pm

    Nice looking opera cake. The use of lavender sounds interesting.

    Reply
  44. 44

    CookiePie says

    May 28 at 8:29 pm

    Your cake is so beautiful! This was my first Daring Bakers challenge — posts like yours are what inspired me to join. I loved all of your descriptions too. Congrats!

    Reply
  45. 45

    Ginny says

    May 28 at 8:39 pm

    Beautiful! I did lavender too! 🙂

    Reply
  46. 46

    Karen says

    May 28 at 8:44 pm

    Beautiful photos, as always.

    Reply
  47. 47

    Jenny says

    May 29 at 4:41 am

    pretty!

    Reply
  48. 48

    Katie B. says

    May 29 at 6:29 am

    Beautiful layers – and I just love anything lemony. Totally gaga for your cake!

    Reply
  49. 49

    Amy says

    May 29 at 9:39 am

    Gorgeous!! These look just beautiful!!

    Reply
  50. 50

    Scott at Real Epicurean says

    May 29 at 10:33 am

    A very perfect looking cake. It sounds so fresh for Spring, too!

    Reply
  51. 51

    Dolores says

    May 29 at 11:37 am

    Absolutely stunning, Anita. And thank you for taking the time to teach us a bit about the genoise.

    Reply
  52. 52

    marion-il en faut peu pour ... says

    May 29 at 11:40 am

    just perfect : the shape, the flavors … just perfect 🙂

    Reply
  53. 53

    Laura says

    May 29 at 11:55 am

    This looks beautiful! I love, love, love lemon and lavender together, so I’m sure this was quite tasty 🙂

    I’ve never participated in a Daring Bakers challenge but wish I had seen this one, I’ve wanted to try my hand at an Opera cake.

    Reply
  54. 54

    Meeta says

    May 29 at 12:19 pm

    You know I know you’ve made the opera before and i was thinking you cannot outdo yourself on this again – but you did. I love the flavors. Perfect!

    Reply
  55. 55

    Amy says

    May 29 at 3:31 pm

    So refined and elegant. Great job Anita!

    Reply
  56. 56

    simona says

    May 29 at 3:38 pm

    wonderful!

    simona

    Reply
  57. 57

    RecipeGirl says

    May 29 at 7:36 pm

    Your cake looks very, very pretty! I would love to create such a masterpiece 🙂

    Reply
  58. 58

    Asianmommy says

    May 29 at 7:56 pm

    Wow–those look just perfect!

    Reply
  59. 59

    Sheltie Girl says

    May 29 at 8:54 pm

    You did a fabulous job on your cake. Your pictures are simply gorgeous.

    Natalie @ Gluten a Go Go

    Reply
  60. 60

    Hannah says

    May 29 at 10:23 pm

    I could have predicted that your cake would look stunning.
    Beautiful work!

    Reply
  61. 61

    Liz says

    May 30 at 7:57 am

    absolutely lovely!!! Will you be sharing/posting the recipe for this one?

    Reply
  62. 62

    Shari says

    May 30 at 10:20 am

    Great explanation about genoise. I love your lavender flowers on top. Very pretty!

    Reply
  63. 63

    Tartelette says

    May 30 at 1:29 pm

    I hope my comment goes through this time….We are true Taureans aren’t we…lavender twins rather! I love that you arranged the buds to make flowers 🙂
    Fabulous job!

    Reply
  64. 64

    Gabi says

    May 30 at 8:31 pm

    Your Opera is so elegant and lovely! The lemon/lavender combination sounds as ethereal as your cake looks-mmmmm

    Reply
  65. 65

    Zita says

    May 31 at 12:28 am

    Simply perfect, looks like white spring 🙂

    Reply
  66. 66

    Barbara says

    May 31 at 8:28 am

    Absolutely gorgeous! They look bake shop perfect.

    Reply
  67. 67

    Pam says

    May 31 at 10:21 am

    Beautiful work and flavors. Great pictures too.

    Reply
  68. 68

    Joanna in the kitchen says

    Jun 1 at 3:35 am

    I am so speechless. Sooo elegant, sooo delicious, sooo stunning.

    Reply
  69. 69

    Y says

    Jun 2 at 4:11 am

    That’s a gorgeous cake. I love the little flowers on top. I’m a big fan of Sadaharu Aoki’s maccha cake as well – had it when I was in Japan last year and haven’t forgotten about it since.

    Reply
  70. 70

    kate says

    Jun 2 at 10:25 am

    Anita these have got to be the neatest and most gorgeous looking opera cakes. Well done babe, no one has done them better !

    Reply
  71. 71

    Deborah says

    Jun 2 at 11:18 am

    Your cake is one of the prettiest I’ve seen!

    Reply
  72. 72

    Holly says

    Jun 2 at 1:54 pm

    Your cake is stunning! Beautiful! I just love the way it looks. Your flavor combination sounds delicious. I had though about using lavender, but I couldn’t think of anything to go with it. You did a great job!

    Reply
  73. 73

    Brownie says

    Jun 2 at 8:04 pm

    Ooooh, your cake looks so lovely and delicate! Nice work!

    Reply
  74. 74

    lori says

    Jun 3 at 12:58 am

    Hi Anita,
    I haven’t been here in a long time. This is a gorgeous, breathtaking post. Congratulations on all your hard work. Did I read correctly — you’re writing a book?

    Reply
  75. 75

    Claire says

    Jun 3 at 7:53 pm

    great job! I love the flowers. BTW, that is how I made my mousse and it worked great…after I let it chill for a little bit.

    Reply
  76. 76

    Dawn says

    Jun 5 at 8:31 am

    This is the most darling cake I have seen with such a sophisticated flavor combo!

    Reply
  77. 77

    mamma3 says

    Jun 5 at 11:45 am

    They looks wonderful, I would like to eat a slice..Elga

    Reply
  78. 78

    barbara says

    Jun 7 at 3:34 am

    Exquisite. THey really are quite beautiful.

    Reply
  79. 79

    chef ledarney says

    Jun 9 at 7:00 pm

    Lavender and Lemon, two of my favorites together here. What a great rendition of a classic

    http://www.nolanledarney.com

    Reply
  80. 80

    Lisa says

    Jun 20 at 12:08 pm

    Wow wonderful cake !!!

    Reply
  81. 81

    Cathy C says

    Jun 26 at 5:34 pm

    What a beautiful cake – These would be great for a Wedding or Baby Shower…

    The combination of Lavender and Lemon sounds so yummy.

    Cheers
    Cathy
    http://www.wheresmydamnanswer.com

    Reply
  82. 82

    Tamami says

    Jul 2 at 6:01 pm

    hmmm… what a lovely invention. layered with lemon buttercream… yum!

    Reply
  83. 83

    Shalum says

    Aug 7 at 12:50 am

    This is such a pretty cake 🙂

    Reply
  84. 84

    Sarah says

    Mar 6 at 8:16 am

    Personnally, I give you all my french congrats! 🙂
    Whoa! Such a pretty cake…
    Just a question: is it possible to have the recipe??
    I’d like to try it at home! 🙂
    Thanks
    Bye

    Reply
  85. 85

    April says

    Mar 7 at 8:41 pm

    Hi! I love this! I’ve always wanted to make an opera cake, but I can’t eat coffee. I’ve been meaning to experiment with rosewater, chocolate and raspberries, but this looks like a dream come true! Thanks!

    Reply
  86. 86

    Jaime says

    May 15 at 1:03 pm

    Looks epic. Maybe I’m missing something, but is there a link to a recipe for this?

    Reply
    • 87

      Anita says

      May 15 at 10:36 pm

      Hi Jaime,

      Thanks! You know what, I’ve been asked for this recipe and unfortunately I lost it! I’ve been meaning to re-create it and if I do I’ll definitely post it up. Thanks so much!

      Reply
  87. 88

    Marianne Polito says

    Feb 23 at 6:34 am

    Hi! I would also love the recipe for this beauty! You are an amazing baker!

    Reply
    • 89

      Anita says

      Jul 9 at 4:10 pm

      Hi Marianne,
      Thanks so much! You know, I still have to find this recipe! If I do I will put it up on the site! Thank you!

      Reply

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