Baking with Marianne

Cake is always on my mind. All day. Every day. I carry a notebook that is dedicated to cakes and other baked goods in my bag because just in case. I never know; I might have a flash of inspiration while waiting at the underground station and I feel the urge to scribble down my ideas. I have a cake notebook on my desk because I think a cake notebook belongs on a desk. There is a cake notebook on my nightstand, along with a pile of cook and baking books, because I might wake up in the middle of the night with a genius inspiration or a nightmare that involves a cake disaster and of course I have to make notes of it. Oh, and did I mention that I have three little boxes - filled with notes of recipes, addresses of bakeries and pâtisseries around the world that I visited or want to visit one day, receipts and paper bags of bakeries and pâtisseries and many other things that are related to baking -  on my book shelf on the right side of my desk.

Some cake ideas that I scribble down in my notebooks remain ideas. Some ideas need a little bit or a lot of adjustment in order to implement the idea. Some ideas are implemented, sometimes with success, sometimes not. The other day I envisioned little mousse cakes that consisted of a nectarine mousse and a mascarpone core with a yellow fruit glaze coating. I visualized perfect hemisphere little yellow mousse cakes and imagined digging into a cake with a pastry fork and being greeted by a stark color contrast of white and yellow. I was brought back to reality when implenting the idea that I had envisioned while sitting in the subway and daydreaming of this cake creation. While making the nectarine mousse I realized that the nectarine mousse turned into a very pale yellow color and does not have such a luscious yellow color and hence, there was not such a color contrast as I pictured in my head. Using more nectarine purée and less whipped cream might create a brighter yellow color. Maybe. However, I was not convinced by the nectarine mousse flavor. It did not taste bad but it did not felt right to me. Nectarine mousse is simply not a good idea, at least in my book.

For a moment I was disappointed but then I was already debating what to do with the leftover mascarpone. There were half a pound of delicious wild blueberries in the fridge that I purchased at the farmers' market and I had a few baked tartlet shells on hand that I wanted to use up as well. Mascarpone, wild blueberries and tart shells screamed for fruit tartlets. I thought to myself that it won't be the most exciting cakes but at least I had some cake to serve for guests and assembling the tartlets would take just a few minutes. To make the tartlets a little more interesting I added some black currant jam on the bottom of the tartlet shells, drizzled jam on the top of the blueberries and decorated the cakes with mint leaves. I was pleased with the look of the tartlets. But when I was digging into the tartlet and I was blown away. The creamy mascarapone filling goes so well with the black currant jam and the sweet and tangy wild blueberries, the tart shells gives the crunchiness to the creamy filling and the mint leaves that meant to be just for decoration gives it a special touch. I did not expect this at all. It is such a dreamy flavor combination. I cannot tell you how much I loved - including the guests I served this as a dessert - this cake creation. It is so simple but so incredible delicious that I had to share this simple recipe with you, even though my last post was a tartlet recipe. But after all, it is blueberry season, of course depending where you live. I am still on the hunt for wild blueberries in the forest but so far I had no luck and I am relying on famers' markets. There is such a big difference between cultivated and wild blueberries. The wild berris do not only have a more intense flavor and are smaller in size but they also have twice as many antioxidants than cultivated blueberries.