Masterchef Challenge: Eight Textured Chocolate Cake

Hello Everyone!!

So I'm a big fan of Masterchef, also because I had a bit of a crush on Gary for a while hehe!

On this current season of Masterchef Australia, one of the Pressure Test Challenges was for the contestants to replicated Peter Gilmore's Eight Textured Chocolate Cake. My good friend Angel asked if I wanted to try making this dish with another friend, Jenny, so I thought why not!

We got a list of ingredients and equipment together and gave ourselves plenty of time to put this cake together. The contestants on the show were only given 3 hours. Between the 3 of us, we thought we'd try to aim for that time, but 4.5 hours later we finally finish assembling this cake! Boy was it a marathon!! I think I've had enough of melting chocolate over a double boiling for a while. You may notice that our cake is a normal cake size and not the cute little ones that it should normally be, we didn't have the correct size cutters so we did what we could.

Here's a picture of a lot of the processes we kept repeating...I think I got to around texture 4 and was hoping we had nearly finished, to only be told that we were only half way...nooooo!

This is us assembling the cake, first goes the cake base, then the mousse, dacquoise, ganche and milk chocolate praline.

Unfortunately, we had to leave out one of the textures, the chocolate caramel cream. As we were whipping the double cream into the mixture, it started to split. We decided it was better to leave it out. (I think that also happened to one of the contestants on the show, she still put it in but got eliminated) Instead we decided to use a bit more chocolate mousse and sprinkle it with some left over hazelnut and almond praline.

The final layer, the tempered chocolate goes on top, and here we are with our finished cake. Now for the final texture to be poured on top for the special effect!

Success!!

Would I call this cake a complete success? I wouldn't say it was completely, but it definitely tasted good! Would I try to make this dish again? No, I'd rather fly down to Sydney and eat it at Quay.

If I were to try this again, the equipment we'd definitely try to have next time would be a palette knife to ensure that the layers would be smoother and thinner. Also, tempering chocolate without a thermometer doesn't work (duh!) but hey we did what we could and it still looks pretty!

Very happy with our finished product!

We finish the night off with some much craved for savoury foods, also inspired by one of the latest episodes on Masterchef, some antipasto!

 Ahh if only Jamie Oliver could cook for me! But this was pretty delicious!!

Thank you Jenny for letting us borrow your beautiful home!! I hope we didn't make too much of a mess.

If you do want to attempt this recipe here's the link for it: http://www.masterchef.com.au/recipes/eighttexture-chocolate-cake.htm
Good luck and let me know how it goes! If you have tried it already, how did it turn out for you?

Joanne :)