Palet d'Or with Devil's Food Cake

This week we tackled the palet d'or or chocolate disc. This is another multi-step, multi-day project but nothing is particularly difficult and with the excellent instruction in the book it is doable and is a showstopper of a dessert, with or without edible gold leaf!

Madeleine Cake

We are re-visiting madeleines this week, in the form of a cake instead of little shells. This recipe, although different in some aspects, is very similar to the traditional madeleines we tackled earlier in this chapter. The result is still a light, spongy, lemon-scented cake. Our bakers had a good time with this recipe, and it was a nice break from the more complicated parfaits last week, and a good rest before the upcoming recipes as well.

Strawberry Parfait with Olive Oil Cake

We are stepping it up with cakes. This week's strawberry parfait has a moist olive oil cake as the base and a rich cream filling combination of pastry cream and buttercream. Fresh strawberries are used but can be substituted for any other berry or fruit of your liking. Raspberry jam adds a nice tartness. Dolloped with a bit of creme fraiche, this is a lovely introduction to summer.