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Our Tutti frutti signature cake is a no-brainer for fruit lovers : a good portion of soft and airy raspberry mousse is tucked in the middle of this puppy, while an almond/matcha soft sponge cake wraps everything. Fruit pearls are all over the top of the cake, making the whole thing juicy and tasty: raspberries, blackberries, dragonfruit, kiwi, banana, peach, mango, rockmelon… Last, but certainly not least, an almond biscuit is used as the bottom layer. The result bursts with both fruity and tasty almond notes.

For this cake, I wanted to pay tribute to the well-known MOF and world pastry champion Emmanuel Ryon, from Café Pouchkine. Whilst every single pastry he creates is amazingly beautiful, I have always found the concept of fruit pearls interesting. One of Pouchkine’s famous pastries, their tutti frutti comes in an individual serving and features a completely different filling/cake. Our tutti frutti’s recipe is therefore quite different than Mr Ryon’s.

To wrap everyting, we use a thin layer of joconde biscuit, a kind of very soft sponge cake. Featured with matcha stripes here, this biscuit is thin, soft and yet tasty with notes of matcha and toasted almonds. The stripes are made via two different doughs: the first one (the green one, coloured with matcha tea) is super thick and sticky while the second one (that comes out white) is full of tiny bubbles and much lighter. We also use a freezer to make sure the two kind of doughs do not mix with each other. To make stripes, you will need to spread the green dough on a silicon sheet and then use a pastry comb to draw stripes or other patters. Some other blogs explain it very well, like Beau à la louche.

Level : 4/5 – Complex
-Required time : 3h baking time + 2h cooling time (you may bake the bottom « amandier » cake the day before. For the other (wrapping) Joconde cake, we recommend you to bake it on the same day to avoid ending up with a dry cake)
-Required tools & appliances: 24cm diameter cake ring of 4,5cm heighth, whip, silicon baking sheet, “Parisienne” spoon to shape the fruits (pictured below)
-Recommended devices: spatula, electric whisk, rhodoid plastic sheet
-Price : about 20€ depending on fruit prices
-Serves: At least 8
-Specific ingredients: Matcha (Traditional Japanese ground green tea), dragonfruit (red pithaya)

Raspberry fields for ever…

Recipe
1) « Cigarette » matcha dough
2) Joconde Sponge cake
3) Amandier cake
4) Raspberry mousse
5) Cake building step 1 : the cake
6) Cake building step 2 : fruit shaping

1) « Cigarette » matcha dough

(Serves a bit more than the required quantity for the cake)

-25g unsalted butter at room temperature
-25g icing sugar
-1 egg white
-10g wheat floud
-8g Matcha green tea

Mix the butter and icing sugar altogether. Then fold in the egg white and stir well to have an homogenous batter.

Then fold in the flour and the matcha tea.

Stir well to have a smooth batter.

Spread a thin layer of this green dough on a silicon sheet, using a spatula. For the required quantities, only a big half of the silicon sheet is required.

Using a plaster comb (obviously brand new and clean  ), draw some lines on the green surface. Once finished, leave it to cool in the freezer for half an hour.

2) Joconde Sponge cake

-30g unsalted butter (melted)

-2 egg whites
-Pinch of salt
-12g caster sugar

-2 whole eggs
-20g wheat flour
-75g icing sugar
-75g almond flour/powder

Using a microwave, melt the butter and leave it to cool. It has to be liquid without being too warm.

Pre-heat your oven at 200°C and make sure your remove the baking tray.

Using an electric whisk at low speed, start whipping the eggs whites with the pinch of salt. At room temperature, it will be a lot easier.

When it becomes a bit dense, fold in the caster sugar and keep on whisking at full speed for a couple of minutes, until the meringue is stiff. Your meringue is ready, it will be used at the end of this step.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix the whole eggs together with a fork.
In a mixing bowl, put the three powders (flour, almond powder, icing sugar) and stir well.

Fold in half of the beaten eggs (not the meringue !) and mix it at full speed for a couple of minutes..

Then, fold in the rest of the eggs and keep on whisking for another couple of minutes. When this batter looks bubbly and lighter, fold in the melted butter and stir well.

Now, using a silicon spatula, fold in small quantity of meringue at one time, as smoothly as possible. Remember, you should end up with a light batter, not with a dense one.

Immediatly after, remove your green stripes from the freezer and pour the almond batter on top of it. Using a flat spatula, flatten gently the dough and level it until it is 4 or 5mm thick. Cook it for 7 or max 8 minutes at 200°C. This “joconde” biscuit has to stay white-ish.

Gently remove it from the silicon sheet, put a clean dish cloth on top of it and leave it to cool.

3) Amandier cake

We will use this cake for the bottom of our Tutti Frutti. The texture is very dense and contrasts with the airy one of the Joconde.

-80 g caster sugar
-100 g almond flour
-2 whole eggs
-45 g unsalted butter at room temperature
-4 drops of bitter almonds extract/essence.

Pre-heat your oven at 180°C
Whip the whole eggs with the sugar until it turns a bit white-ish.

Fold in the almond flour and whip everything.

Fold in the drops of bitter almonds extract.

Last but not least, fold in the butter until you have an homogenous batter.

Pour this batter in a 24cm diameter tart ring.

Bake it for 15 min maximum at 180°C.
Then, remove the tart ring before it cools down.

Remove 1cm on the edge of this discus, because the edges are always harder than the middle on this kind of cakes. Save these pieces for a tea or for your next breakfast.

4) Raspberry mousse

30 cl cream (min 35% fat) kept in the freezer for 30 min
150 g raspberry purée (homemade or not)
20 g icing sugar
2 leaves of gelatin

Gently heat the raspberry purée in a saucepan.It has to be quite liquid.
Meanwhile, put the gelatin leaves in a big amount of cold water – for 5min. Remove it from the water once they are soft, and fold them in the warm raspberry purée. Remove from the stove right away.

Pour everything in a cold plate to cool down this raspberry purée.
Whip the cream and icing sugar into a chantilly (at maximum speed with a whisk or a Kitchenaid-like stand mixer).

Once the cream is stiff, fold in gently the raspberry purée in it, and mix it gently until it is homogenous and pink. Your mousse is ready.

5) Cake building step one : the cake

Cut 4,5cm wide bands into your stripped Joconde cake.

In a wide plate, put your cake ring in the middle. You may want to add rhodoid plastic sheet to avoid bad surprises when removing the ring.
First of all, put the joconde cake against the ring, with the stripped side against the ring.
Then, put the amandier cake on the bottom, it should fit perfectly, no space must be left. Should there be a hole, use the left, drier bits of amandier to patch them.

Pour the rasbperry mousse in the middle and flatten the top with a spatula. As you may have noticed, there is not enough mousse to match the top of the cake, because I only wanted this quantity of mousse. More would be too much.

Leave the cake to cool for at least 2hrs, or 3-4 hours (even better !) until the mousse is set.

6) Cake building step 2 : the fruits

Peel off the ripe fruits normally. Do not slice them. For the dragonfruit, one should remove the purple skin.

Then, use a Parisienne spoon to shape scoops/pearls of fruits.

You will end up with quite a bit of leftover fruit pieces. Put them on top of the mousse, do not exceed the top of the joconde cake.

Last but not least, put the fruit pearls on top of the cake. Alternate fruits to have a better looking cake.

Enjoy ! Bon appétit.