Patisserie Leila, Bristol

How did I discover this place? Well, I've actually walked past it several times before on my way to friend's place. But I have NEVER been inside the patisserie. Yesterday, I was frustrated and essentially quite pi*ssed off in the morning at work so I decided to leave and work from home instead. At lunch time, since I had nothing in the house to make anything sweet with and I was in the process of proving my bread dough, I decided to go and buy myself some sweet treats! That's where Patisserie Leila come in. 

According to the patisserie's website, all the chefs/patissiers there were trained at Le Notre in France and the window display did look wonderful (and it's literally 5 minutes walk from my flat), it tempted me to go inside and buy something. As soon as I walked in, I was greeted with a smile and the waiter and waitress were very nice and welcoming. Me, being a typical difficult customer asked them if they can tell me what each of the display is and genuinely been quite thorough in what I asked. Again, they were very helpful! 

So moving on to the desserts. I bought 5 different flavours of macarons, a black forest gateau and a strawberry tart. The macarons were all delicious and looked ever so tempting. Both the texture and the flavour were great and You can definitely taste what is meant to be in each macaron. 

The black forest gateau, or what they insisted was a black forest gateau was also very good, the chocolate sponge was very moist and the flavour really complemented the fillings. Though the cream is just a little too sweet for me. Also, they have used strawberries instead of the traditional cherries to my surprise, hence I'm not sure if I can still call that a black forest gateau.

The strawberry tart also tasted very good. The creme patissiere was light and sweet, but a bit too runny for my liking, I would like it to hold its shape slightly better, but all in all, very good. 

So, I would really recommend this little cafe/patisserie to everyone who visits Bristol. It's fairly centrally located just off gloucester road and about 10 minutes walk from Bristol city centre. Another thing is, since it's not a chain, what it has to sell and on display varies from day to day, which I think is a good thing. 

So here is the address to this wonderful patisserie:

Patisserie Leila

88 Stokes Croft

Bristol, BS2 3RJ 

Cashew nut and walnut white loaf bread (version 2.0)

This is an improved version of my first bread, so don't judge me by how it looks (again). You won't win any competitions with the look of this, but it actually tastes quite ok and definitely beats normal bread you buy from stores. So, I'd recommend this to beginner bread makers, if I can do it, then you can too!

Ingredients

• 130g strong white flour
• 20g salted butter
• 4g fast action dried yeast
• Half tsp salt
• 130ml warm water (I actually measured it on my scale as I don't possess a measuring cylinder at the moment, but by the law of physics 1ml=1g surely)
• 15g walnut
• 15g cashew nut

1. Melt butter in microwave and leave it to cool to room temperature for 20 minutes 
2. Mix flour, salt and dried yeast together
3. Add butter and a third of the water and combine it with dry ingredients, then add another 1/3 and then the last bit. I find it hard to add all the water in one go, as it becomes too wet and the water doesn't get absorbed by the dry ingredients as well
4. Combine until it forms a wet and sticky dough
5. Then knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 10 minutes. The dough should become smoother and should no longer stick to your hand very quickly into the kneading process, you will know when it's done by poking it with a finger and the dough should spring back slightly
6. Sprinkle some olive oil in a large container and put the dough inside and seal with cling film. Let it prove for 2 hours in a warm room and the dough should double in size. If your kitchen or room is cold, then you should leave it to prove for 4-5 hours 
7. Chop nuts roughly, they don't need to be very finely chopped as you would want the nutty texture
8. Flatten the dough and sprinkle the chopped nuts on it 
9. Work the nuts into the dough until it is distributed evenly within it and continue kneading for another 2 minutes
10. Put the dough back into olive oil sprinkled container and seal with cling film again and prove again. The size of the dough may not double, but it should increase in size. Let it prove for the second time for about 1 hour, or if your room is cold, let it prove for 2
11. Pre-heat oven to 220 degrees C when you can see the dough increasing in size and proved for at least 50 minutes 
12. Take the proved dough and put it on a baking tray with a piece of parchment paper and egg wash if desired and bake for 40-50 minutes 
13. When it's done, the bread should sound hollow inside when you tap the bottom. OR, if you have a meat thermometer, then follow this link and it will tell you something interesting: http://bakingbites.com/2008/02/how-do-you-know-when-bread-is-done-baking/ 

Long story short, the inside of your bread should be about 94 degrees C if it's cooked according to this website, not sure how true this is, but it's worth a try I guess if you have the equipment anyway. 

christmas decoration cake (attempt no.1 + 2)

attempt 1 

attempt 2

Christmas is fast approaching, ish, it's still more than a month away, but I suppose some of us do get ahead of ourselves sometimes. 

This is a visually nice looking cake, easy to make, but does take quite a lot of time making all the different components and assembling them. Most of the components used here have been covered by previous blog posts, so I'll simply put a link to the ones I've covered already. As each person has their own way of decorating things, I'll leave out the detailed decoration instructions and leave that to your imagination!

Macaroons: http://bakingscience.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/macaroons-for-those-who-are-struggling.html
Profiteroles: http://bakingscience.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/chocolate-cream-profiteroles-cream.html
Caramel: http://bakingscience.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/caramel-and-caramel-sauce.html

Ingredients 
victoria sponge

• 220g caster sugar
• 220g unsalted butter
• 220g self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs

1. Line a 20cm x 40cm (or similar size) baking tray with baking parchment
2. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C 
3. Cream sugar, butter, baking powder and flour together
4. Add one egg at a time to the mixture and mix until combined and then add the next egg, etc until all the eggs have been added
5. Mix in vanilla extract
6. Put all the batter into the baking tray and bake for 30-35 minutes
7. The cake is done when you press the sponge gently and it springs back, and when poked with a knife, it comes out clean

Chocolate and cinnamon cookies

• 125g unsalted butter
• 75g icing sugar
• 130g plain flour
• 40g coco powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon 

1. Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees C
2. Mix butter and icing sugar together until the mixture is fluffy
3. Sift flour and coco powder into the mixture and knead into a smooth dough
4. Roll out the dough to about 3mm thick 
5. Cut out your rolled out dough into desired shapes (you will need to do the measurements beforehand)
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes 

Marzipan candy sticks
You don't actually need a recipe for this, it's quite straight forward really.

1. Get some marzipan, and some red sugar paste
2. Roll each of them out into a long strip
3. Twist them together and roll again and shape it into a candy stick!

Quick chicken and mushroom pie

This is my first savoury blog post! Please bear in mind that this is a quick version of the pie, where a lot of the components can be substituted with shop bought ingredients. Obviously nothing beats homemade everything, but for the sake of those who are busy with work, gets home after 6 or 7pm and just don't have the time to prepare everything from scratch. This is a very quick and easy thing to do! 

Ingredients

• 100 unsalted butter
• salt
• 250g plain flour
• 1 large egg
• 4 tbsps cold water
• 3 chicken breast fillets
• 7 large closed cup mushrooms
• Half an onion
• 1 tbsp Parsley
• Sprinkle of pepper
• Rolled puff pastry

1. Pre-heat fan oven to 200 degrees C
2. Mix butter, a pinch of salt and plain flour together until breadcrumb consistency
3. Add in theegg and mix
4. Add 1 tbsp of water at a time and knead the ingredients together, add just enough until the mixture is smooth and combined, you may not need 4 tbsps of water, or sometimes you may need 5 (this really varies)
5. Roll out the pastry to about 3mm thickness and place it inside the 20/22 cm baking tin or tart tray or anything that you can shape your pastry with 
6. Put a piece of parchment paper on the base of pastry and baking beans on top 
7. Place in oven and blind bake for 15 minutes (during this time, start preparing fillings by following steps 12-17)
8. Trim off the excess ridges and check whether the bottom of pastry is dry
9. When the pastry is dry, remove parchment paper and baking beans and return to oven for another 15 minutes 
10. Take pastry out of oven to cool down slightly
11. Lower oven temperature to 180 degrees C
12. Chop chicken into thin slices and sear on a hot frying pan
13. Cook quartered mushrooms and chopped onions (doesn't need to be chopped too small) over medium heat in the absence of oil and water, try to cook off excess water 
14. Mix mushroom, onion and chicken and add pepper, salt and parsley and briefly heat in frying pan
15. Heat up 150ml water with 2 vegetable cubes until the cubes have completely broken up 
16. Measure 20g corn flour and add 2 tbsp of vegetable stock to it
17. Repeat step 16 until the corn flour forms a thin paste
18. Add vegetable stock with corn flour to filling and mix and briefly heat for a minute 
19. Pour mixture into the base of the pie
20. Cut out puff pastry large enough to cover the base of the pie plus 1-1.5cm either side 
21. Place puff pastry over the top of the pie and seal it completely with the extra pastry on the sides and tuck around the base 
22. Poke 3-4 small wholes on the puff pastry lid to allow steam to escape 
23. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the puff pastry lid has risen and turned golden brown

Here is your hearty "homemade" chicken and mushroom pie. Majority of the work is done by you, but the most time consuming parts have been taken care of by your local supermarket! It's not completely completely homemade, but it's still A LOT better than the shop bought ones and it's probably healthier too!

Chocolate cream profiteroles (cream puffs, choux a la creme)

Shop bought profiteroles tend to have a slightly crispy and dry pastry shell, but home baked ones are a little lighter and fluffy inside and should have an almost melt in your mouth texture. It contains no raising reagent, but instead it is extremely wet, so the steam trapped inside the pastry will make it expand. Also the butter should help to make the pastry rise just like a puff pastry. 

Ingredients (makes about 30 large buns)

• 200ml cold water
• 85g unsalted butter
• 5g caster sugar
• pinch of salt
• 115g sifted plain flour
• 3 medium eggs 
• 70g milk chocolate
• 100ml double cream
• 30g dark chocolate

1. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees, this is VERY important, the temperature must be high enough when the pastry goes in
2. Mix water, sugar and butter together in a saucepan and melt the butter over medium low heat, stir occasionally 
3. Once butter has completely melted and the water is boiling, give the mix a good stir and add a pinch of salt and stir again
4. Switch up heat to medium and add the sifted flour and mix it into the water. The flour should soak up the liquid quite quickly, keep stirring until the batter has become a thick paste/dough
5. Remove the paste from heat and let it cool down for about 30 minutes at room temperature
6. Beat the eggs and add a quarter to the batter and fold it in until it is all mixed, repeat the process until the batter is shiny and just drops off from the mixing spoon (N.B. You may not need all the eggs, in fact, it is likely you won't need all the eggs)
7. Pipe the batter onto a sheet of baking parchment, I used a 2p coin as reference size
8. Use a wet finger to press down the peak on the choux bun to give a flat surface and prevent the peak from getting burnt 
9. Bake for 25-30 minutes, the choux bun should have risen and turned slightly golden brown 
10. Remove from the oven and use a thin skewer to make a hole at the bottom of the choux bun to  allow the steam to escape 
11. Put the buns back in the oven for another 5 minutes to dry off the inside 
12. Leave at room temperature to cool 
13. Melt the milk chocolate over simmering water
14. Whip the cream until stiff and fold the melted milk chocolate into it to make the chocolate cream, use a piping bag with thin nodule to pipe the cream into the choux buns, make sure the buns are properly filled 
15. If you don't have a piping bag or nodules, slice choux bun in half and fill it this way
16. Melt the dark chocolate and pipe stripes of the chocolate over the profiteroles to finish

Viennese fingers

Viennese fingers, viennese fingers...hmmm, nope, can't think of anything clever with this. Except that it looks like a finger with black nails??? For all you people who are thinking of weird things right now, STOP thinking anything disgusting! Anyway, let's crack on with this.

Ingredients (20-25 biscuits)

1. 100g unsalted butter
2. 30g icing sugar
3. 110g plain flour
4. 50g plain chocolate

• Weigh out butter and let it warm up to room temperature, this will soften the butter 
• Once butter is soft, pre-heat oven to 180 degrees 
• Mix in the icing sugar into the butter until it becomes pale and fluffy
• Sift in the flour and mix until it is all combined
• Pipe the mixture into whatever shape you want onto a piece of baking parchment 
• Bake for 12-20 minutes, the surface should be golden brown 
• Take it out of the oven to cool. This biscuit is quite crumbly so be gentle when you take it out of the oven
• Once biscuits have cooled, melt chocolate over simmering water 
• Dip one end of the biscuit into the chocolate and magic! Here's your viennese fingers! 

apple custard cake

This is a very simple cake, genoise, custard and cream. Nothing out of the ordinary and it's definitely something everyone can whip up in 2 hours, ok, maybe 2 and a half or 3. But, it's worth every effort. My family loves apples, especially crunchy ones, so I've made an apple custard for the filling of this cake.

Ingrdients:

• 6 large eggs
• 125g self raising flour (or plain flour if you prefer the more traditional genoise, but honestly, self raising flour rises better, but over, the difference is not THAT big)
• 175g caster sugar
• 50g unsalted butter
• 3 granny smith apples
• 1 pink lady apple 
• 50g corn flour
• 5 tbsps milk 
• 250ml double cream
• An electric whisk, this is absolutely essential

1. Weigh out sifted self raising flour and leave aside
2. Weigh out butter and let it soften at room temperature for 30 minutes, you want this to be VERY soft but not melted
3. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C and line 2x18cm round cake tins, yes, this is going to be quite a tall cake 
4. Put 4 eggs into a large mixing bowl with 125g caster sugar and whisk over a pan of simmering water, careful not to cook the eggs whilst you are whisking
5. Eventually, the eggs/caster sugar batter will at least triple or even quadruple in volume and thicken. You should keep whisking until the batter comes off the mixer and leave a trail of ribbon behind it and the colour at this stage should be very pale yellow, almost white
6. Add the sifted flour into the batter and very gently fold it in
7. Add in the butter and fold it in until everything has combined or became equally distributed
8. Divide the cake mixture into the two cake tins evenly and bake for 20-25 minutes, when it's done, the edges will shrink away from the parchment paper slightly, test with a clean knife or skewer to see whether it's done inside, it should come out completely clean
9. Take the sponges out of the oven and cool inside the tin for 5 minutes and then take it out and cool on a wired rack
10. Divid each sponge horizontally into 2 equal pieces and cool completely
11. Whilst you are waiting for the sponge to cool, skin and core the granny smith apples and chop into small pieces and blend until you get a puree
12. Mix puree with 5 tbsps of milk  and put it in a saucepan over low heat until it simmers
13. Mix 2 eggs with 50g caster sugar until well combined and then mix in the corn flour and repeat the mixing process until the mixture is smooth and silky
14. Once everything has mixed, add in a tbsp of the hot apple puree into the egg mixture and mix
15. Repeat step 14 twice
16. Pour all of the egg mixture into the simmering apple puree and mix vigorously, keeping the whole thing over a heat source
17. Put up the heat to medium and keep whisking, eventually it will boil
18. Once the mixture boils, keep whisking until it thickens and becomes smooth, but not too thick that it doesn't come off the spoon, set aside to cool completely
19. Chop the pink ladies in half and core the apple
20. Chop half of the apple into small cubes for filling and the other half into thin slices for decoration. Put all apple into lemon water to prevent it from yellowing 
21. Once apple custard has cooled, mix the apple cubes with apple custard and spread an equal amount in between each genoise sponge layer 
22. Whisk double cream until stiff and layer the entire cake with cream 
23. Decorate the top with apple slices into the shape of a flower (simply lay one of the apple on top of each other in a spiral fashion)
24. I also chopped some grapes in half to cover the edges of the cake on top, but that is purely for aesthetic purposes

Caramel and caramel sauce

Caramel is basically the combination of sugar and water. The actual method is very simple, but getting it right can be a little bit tricky. The only things you need are white granulated sugar and water and a stainless steel saucepan and of course a heat source. The amount of ingredients you need is purely based on how much you need.

Ingredients (caramel)
This is actually the Mary Berry recipe, but I've included a couple of things to make process easier from experience.

1. 160g white granulated sugar
2. 6 tbsps cold water

This recipe is enough for 6 creme caramels or caramel sauce to serve about 5 people depending on what you're using it for. So, to make the caramel, follow the very simple recipe:

• Fully dissolve sugar in water over low heat with a wooden spoon until you can longer feel any sugar in the water
• Take spoon away from saucepan once sugar has dissolved and KEEP IT AWAY!
• Turn up the heat until the mixture boils (DO NOT PUT SPOON BACK IN OR STIR AT ALL!!!)
• If you want to evenly distribute the heat over the whole saucepan, gently lift saucepan from one end and swirl carefully over heat source
• The mixture should continue bubbling, just keep heating and it will go from clear to light yellow to amber
• We want an orangey hue to the amber colour (light yellow will be very sweet and there won't be too much of a flavour, and too dark, then the caramel is burnt and will taste very bitter)
• When you're making this for the first time and not sure what colour you're expecting, take a metal spoon and dip it into the side of the saucepan and then put the caramel on a cold surface (preferably something you don't want like a piece of white used parchment paper), the perfect caramel should be a fairly dark amber colour and quite viscous and will solidify quicker than the lighter ones
• When it's at the right colour, quickly take the saucepan off the heat source and add a tsp of cold water to the caramel (the caramel will continue to darken for a little while when you take it off the heat, so it needs to be cooled rapidly to stop it from going bitter. Some people put the entire saucepan into a pool of cold water, but I find putting a tsp of cold water directly into the caramel to work better and actually stops the burning altogether)
• Now you have the perfect caramel, but note caramel harden quite quickly, so you will have to be quick and decide what to do next 

Caramel sauce
You will have to make the caramel first, surprise surprise! You will also need:

1. 80ml double cream
2. 60g unsalted butter

• Heat up double cream until it is hot, but not boiling
• Chop butter into small cubes
• DO NOT add cold water into saucepan once your caramel has reached the right colour
• Switch the heat on caramel right down
• Sift double cream directly into the caramel (Be very careful as the caramel and double cream can bubble up and go everywhere and can splatter) 
• Keep mixing until caramel and cream have combined well
• Take off the heat and pour the sauce into a clean bowl and add butter cubes into the hot sauce
• Mix well until all the butter has melted and mixed in 
• Leave to cool down and thicken, the sauce should be thick enough to be piped once it is set

macarons

Ingredients (about 70 plain macaron shells):

• 160g ground almond 
• 160g icing sugar
• 140g egg white
• 130g caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 drops or so of liquid food colouring, unless you are using powder, don't go excessive on it, or it will ruin the consistency (use paste if possible)

1. Sift and weigh ground almond and icing sugar and mix with a spoon until everything has been mixed 
2. Whisk egg white with an electric whisk until soft peaks and add 1 tbsp caster sugar at a time whilst continuing the whisking until all the the sugar has been added and dissolved. Continue whisking for a few more minutes until the meringue is stiff and glossy
3. Pour almond/icing sugar mixture, vanilla extract and colouring into the meringue (if you are any particular flavouring, now would be the time to add it)
4. Start by gently folding in the dry ingredients into the meringue until combined, then the mixing can be speeded up slightly to get even distribution of the colour, but slower mixing the better to prevent removing any trapped air in the egg white
5. Keep mixing/folding until mixture JUST falls off spoon and mixture from the side of the bowl runs back to the centre slowly 
6. Pipe it onto a baking parchment on a baking tray, I do the size of a 2 pound coin, make sure they have good volume as they will flatten when tapped and they only rise a little, always do an odd number, you'll see why in a bit
7. Tap baking tray on the table to remove trapped air and flatten the mixture, if you still have small peaks after tapping, that means you haven't mixed the batter enough
8. Leave the piped mixture at room temperature in a dry(ish) room until soft shells have formed on the macaroons 

For chocolate macaron shells, reduce ground almond by 6g and replace with 6g of sifted coco powder.

How do you know whether you macarons have formed a good enough shell? Use the tip of a dry finger and poke a macaron shell. It should not stick at all, and also, you should see cracks form around the area where you poked it. This is the shell you've just sacrificed for testing, that's why I told you to pipe odd numbers. 

1. Bake for 150 degrees C for 15-20 minutes (I'm afraid this is very oven dependent, best way to test it is to see if the top shell has become crisp
2. Take it out of the oven and see if you can lift the macaron off the parchment paper without it sticking, you have to be quite gentle with this. If it sticks, put it back in the oven for another  two minutes

For filling

I used chocolate ganache, so this really is a very generic recipe, for chocolate ganache, you can read my other blog posts. Similarly, buttercream also works really well. 

This recipe is practically foolproof (I hope), great texture and a lovely shine on the surface. Again, HAPPY BAKING!

Helpful tips

• If you have not mixed the meringue with almond enough, then your mixture will be quite stiff and looks like it is full of big lumps
• If you have over mixed the meringue with almond, then your mixture will be VERY runny, unfortunately at this stage, you can only put it in the oven and hope for the best, but don't get your hopes up
• Always add colouring and flavouring last to avoid changing the consistency of your mixture
• Absolutely make sure the shell has formed on the macarons, or it WILL crack when you bake them

Fraisier

The fraisier cake, it's a beautiful cake, sometimes I think they look better than they actually taste, call it personal preference. It's not actually very difficult to make as long as you follow the instructions perfectly. 

Ingredients (genoise sponge):

• 4 large eggs
• 125g self raising flour
• 125g caster sugar
• 50g unsalted butter

1. To make the sponge, pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C
2. Grease and line 9 inch baking tin with baking parchment
3. Weigh out the butter and warm it in the microwave until melted, set it aside and let it cool down for 20-30 minutes 
4. Sift and weigh flour and set aside, we'll come back to this
5. Heat water in s saucepan until it starts to simmer and keep it on a low heat
6. Put the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl and gently whisk to break eggs and incorporate the sugar
7. Put the bowl containing egg/sugar mixture over simmering water and beat with hand held electric whisk continuously at high speed until the mixture has at least tripled in volume and leaves a trail of ribbon. This can take about 10-15 minutes of continuous whisking, so, be patient (if you have a stand up whisk, put it on high speed and let it whisk away until again, you see a trail of ribbon)
8. Add in the butter to the egg mixture from the side of the mixing bowl and whisk for 1 minute at medium speed
9. Add a third of the flour into the egg mixture and fold it in
10. Add the rest of the flour and fold in the rest very gently 
11. As soon as everything has been mixed, immediately pour cake mix into baking tin. 
12. Bake for 35-38 minutes and start preparing the fillings 
13. The surface should turn golden brown and sides start to shrink away from baking parchment
14. Cool in tin for 5 minutes and then take it out and cool on a wired rack 
15. When cooled, slice the cake horizontally into 2 thin sponges 
16. Line the tin with baking parchment and put one sponge back in the tin

Ingredients (strawberry jam) 

• 40g caster sugar
• 200g strawberries
• 2 leaves of gelatine

1. Wash and chop strawberries into thin slices
2. Soak gelatine in cold water for 5 minutes
3. Heat strawberries with sugar until it simmers and the mixture begins to go watery
4. Cut up the gelatine into small pieces and add to the strawberries and mix well
5. Heat for further 3 minutes
6. Leave it to cool down

Ingredients (mousseline)

• 175g caster sugar
• 4 large eggs and 2 large egg yolks
• 120g cornflour
• 600ml milk
• 1 and a half tbsp vanilla extract
• 80g unsalted butter

1. Beat sugar and eggs together until it is a pale yellow colour 
2. Mix in cornflour into the eggs until it resembles a lose paste consistency
3. Heat milk until it simmers and pour a little bit at a time into eggs and continue whisking the whole time
4. Pour eggs/milk back in saucepan and put it on medium heat and whisk the whole time until it has thickened
5. Add the butter in small chunks and incorporate into the custard
6. Add the vanilla and fold it in 
7. Set aside to cool

Ingredients (chocolate ganache)

• 70ml double cream
• 40g plain chocolate
• 30g muscovado sugar (if not, any sugar)

1. Heat cream and sugar together until simmer, set aside to cool for 2-3 minutes
2. Pour hot cream onto chocolate and melt it, whisk with spoon until chocolate has completely melted

Assembling

1. Put one half of sponge at bottom of tin
2. Spread strawberry jam over the sponge
3. Cut strawberries in half and line them on the side of the sponge (inside of strawberries facing out)
4. Pipe half of mousseline over the bottom sponge and place a layer of strawberries on it
5. Pour cooled chocolate ganache over the strawberries
6. Place remaining mousseline over the strawberry/chocolate layer, pipe mousseline over the strawberries on the side too
7. Place 2nd sponge layer on, use your palm and push down gently to push the mousseline to cover the gaps between strawberries
8. Spread remaining jam on the 2nd sponge
9. Place a thin rolled up marzipan on top
10. Decorate with strawberries and chocolate

Helpful tips

• Weigh out all genoise ingredients before you put egg/sugar mixture over simmering water, as you cannot stop whisking to weigh the other ingredients halfway through. And if you do that at the end after the eggs have built up the volume, then it can de-flate before you got the flour weighed out
• Warm the butter first thing, you want it to be completely cool before adding it to the cake batter
• Useful to have marzipan at room temperature when rolling it, or it will be quite hard
• Some people add the cornflour directly into the milk, don't do that, it's much harder to get rid of the lumps in the flour in such a large volume of liquid, do the mixing with the egg
• Once eggs have been added to hot milk, you MUST stir continuously and rather vigorously! 
• Useful to have a ruler to hand to measure how big your cake is so you can cut out your marzipan accurately (I didn't, hence my marzipan was much bigger than my cake)