Mimosa Cake Recipe (Torta Mimosa)
Posted on Dec 4, 2010 06:40:16 PM
Ok I’ll keep the intro to the minimum because this will be a long recipe.
It was the first time I made this cake, and I’m pretty happy with the results. It took me two full hours of work, but it was worth it I think. Mimosa is the official flower of the International Women’s day on the 8th of March (in English it is actually the Silver wattle), and this is the official cake for that day, at least in Italy.
If you want to do this the cool and not the cheap way, there are two parts in the mimosa cake recipe that you will have to do from scratch: the sponge and the pastry cream. The rest is easier: whip the cream, chop the fruit, and add the liqueur (like Grand Marnier), or pineapple juice if you want to make it alcohol-free, like in this case.
Here we go with the ingredients for each part:
For the sponge:
75gr (2.6 oz) flour
75gr (2.6 oz) corn starch
1 pinch of salt
6 medium eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
150gr (5.3 oz) sugar
For the pastry cream:
70gr (2.5) flour
500ml (1 pint) milk
Zest of half lemon
6 eggs
1 stick of vanilla
180gr (6.3 oz) sugar
For the rest of the filling:
400gr (14 oz) canned pineapple
Half glass Grand Marnier or pineapple juice
500gr (1.1 lb) double cream
100gr (3.5 oz) caster sugar
This type of sponge in Italian is called Pan di Spagna (literally, bread from Spain). It is said to be created in the 18th century by a cook from Genoa, who worked for Genoa’s ambassador in Spain. This is why the original name of this sponge is pasta genovese (Genoese pastry). Nowadays the recipe is simpler, but what I did is closer to the original one.
Here it goes. Preheat the oven at 180°C (356°F). Grease a loose bottomed cake-tin with softened butter and dust it with flour.
Add the eggs and the sugar to a large bowl. Fill a saucepan with water and put it on the stove on a medium heat, then put the bowl on top (don’t worry even if it’s plastic bowl, it won’t melt). Now start mixing with a food mixer. It’s crucial to take the temperature with a meat thermometer. Keep on mixing and bring the mix to 45-50°C (113-122°F). Then take it off the stove and add the (sieved) flour and gently mix with a wooden spoon until blended. Remember that the reason why it will be soft and with an insanely increased size is because there is a lot of air in it. So work it gently, and just until the flour is incorporated.
Pour the mix in the cake tin and bake for 22-25 minutes. Don’t even think about opening the oven door for the first 20 minutes, or the sponge will collapse and your whole world with it. After 22 minutes, do the toothpick test, and if it comes out clean, turn off the oven and leave it there for ten more minutes, then take it out and let it cool to room temperature before opening the tin.
Prepare the pastry cream. Put aside a glass of milk and heat it in the microwave until lukewarm.
Pour the rest in a pan with the vanilla stick, bring to the boil on a low heat, then take off the stove immediately and let it there for 10 minutes.
in thee meantime, work the yolks with the sugar until smooth and very pale, then add on third of the milk in the glass, and the flour, one tbsp at the time.
Get rid of the vanilla stick, put the pan on the stove on a low heat and pour the egg mix. Hetat the cream stirring all the time, gradually adding the rest of the milk. Let it simmer for 3-4 minutes until it thickens. If you get lumps in the end nevermind you can sieve it and it’ll be ok. Pour it in a bowl and cover with cling film.
Ok now take the sponge out of the tin. With a long sharp knife slice off the top of the cake, about 2cm from the top, make sure you don’t break it and put it aside. Now, using both a shorter knife and a spoon, remove the inside of the sponge. Try not to break it too much and leave 2cm from the edges and the bottom. Put the sponge aside too, and wet the inside with the pineapple juice.
Whip the cream – make sure it’s at a temperature of 5-6°C (41-42°F) and mix it with the pastry cream. Put aside one third of the cream, add the pineapple, and pour it inside the sponge, leveling it with a spatula. Put back the top of the sponge, upside down, leaving the brownish part inside. Cover the cake with the remaining cream. And there you go, this endless mimosa cake recipe is (almost) over.
Tear the remaining sponge into small pieces and stick them all over the cake. This is the (to me) most tedious part of the job, but if you do it well it will look very good. If you look the picture very closely you will notice that o the upper side there is a piece that remained uncovered, cos I ran out of sponge.
Oh, and the strawberries are fake. If you liked this recipe for mimosa cake, take a look at the rest of the cake recipes.