Chocolate Entremet

I first came across this cake on Youtube (one of the few sources that I gain my baking inspirations from). It's quintessentially French and is composed of many different layers of mousse, cream (Cremeux, or Crème Fondante), Croustillant/Feuilleté and sponge. The idea is to produce contrarsting textures from the creaminess of the mousse to the crispiness of the feuilleté, silkiness of the cremeux and finishing off with a  tender sponge base. All these enclosed in a rich and velvety chocolate ganache and coated with a shiny glaze.

The making of an entremet requires a methodical approach. All the layers have to be made individually prior to assembly and frozen before masking with the ganache and the final glazing with the glaçage.

The end result is this:

I have to confess that I did spend HOURS making this. The exact amount of time involved was in the range of 10 hours. Yes, 10 whole hours. Here's the rant: I only had three mixing bowls, work surface the size of an exam desk, fridge space big enough for a packet of crisps and a freezer compartment with a shape that doesn't fit my baking tray. On the other hand, I had to make the seven components of the cake separately and froze them as I went along. That meant I had to wash my mixing bowls seven times and dry them in between washes. Also the... OK I won't bore you further with my endless rant. Essentially it would have only taken me half the time had I had enough mixing bowls to make all the layers in one go and do the washing up at the very end instead of an interrupted work pattern. Extra fridge and freezer space would've helped too. The joys of being student baker who shares one tiny fridge and freeer with three other fellow students.

Surprisingly it turned out pretty close to what I had in mind:

I also made a smaller version of the entremet for my friend who requested something special for her supervisor:

Here is a cross section of the cake: Glaçage, Ganache, Chocolate Mousse, Chocolate Cremeux, Crouistillant, Brownie base (Top to bottom)

The bottom layers were almost merged into one in this slice because I didn't have enough fridge space to chill it properly after I brought it back from the audition (my flatmate had brought back even more groceries by then)

Overall, it tasted good, all my friends loved it and to my surprise almost everyone wanted to see more of the croustillant layer in this cake! It was my first time adding a crispy layer to my cake so I didn't want to overdo it. That said, point taken.

It feels great to have finally managed to make this entremet since it's been playing in my head for ages. One ticked and n = ∞ left on my to-bake list.