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Mini cakes "Bouchee"
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Mini cakes "Bouchee"

The mini cakes "Bouchee" are made of fluffy sponge cake, the delicate butter cream and covered with sweet fondant chocolate icing. They taste soft, creamy and so delicious. Although the pastry has a French name, it used to be very popular in the Soviet Union. You can make it yourself following this recipe.
Course Dessert
Cuisine Russian
Prep Time 1 hour 20 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Cooling time 2 hours
Servings 10 mini cakes

Equipment

  • piping bag

Ingredients

for the dough

  • 3 eggs
  • 50 g sugar
  • 60 g flour
  • 5 g vanilla sugar
  • 1 pinch of salt

for the filling

  • 170 g butter (room temperature)
  • 70 ml milk
  • 70 g sugar
  • 15 g cornstarch
  • vanilla
  • 1 tbsp rum or cognac (room temperature)

for the fondant chocolate icing

  • 150 g sugar
  • 50 ml water
  • 3 - 4 drops of lemon juice
  • 1 tbsp cocoa powder

for the sugar syrup for soaking

  • 40 ml water
  • 30 g sugar
  • vanilla

Instructions

Making the fondant

  • Place sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. The sugar must dissolve before the syrup boils. If it doesn't, take the saucepan with the syrup off the heat, stir it until the sugar dissolves, and put it back on the heat.
  • Once the sugar syrup boils, add lemon juice, stir it briefly and boil the syrup until 114 - 115 °C without stirring it. Then immediately pour the sugar syrup into a clean glass or ceramic bowl and let it cool down to 40 °C.
  • Beat the sugar syrup with dough hooks to form a white fondant until the sugar mixture becomes firm and stripes form from it at the bottom of the bowl so that the bottom is visible.
  • Form the fondant into a ball with your hands (you can help yourself with a tablespoon), wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for about 24 hours.

Making the dough

  • Separate egg yolks from egg whites. Beat egg whites together with salt until foamy.
  • Gradually add sugar with vanilla sugar and beat until stiff.
  • Briefly stir in egg yolks one at a time.
  • Fold in flour to make an airy thick batter.
  • Fill the sponge dough into the piping bag with the round nozzle and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper about Ø 5 - 6 cm large, slightly thicker cookies (I had 20), leaving plenty of space between them.
  • Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 190 °C top and bottom heat for about 15 minutes and let them cool down.

Making the sugar syrup for soaking

  • Put sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly so that the sugar dissolves before it boils.
  • Take the sugar syrup off the heat, add vanilla and let the syrup cool.

Making the filling

  • Dissolve cornstarch in a small amount of milk.
  • Add the remaining milk and sugar to a small, thick-bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly.
  • Once boiling, add the cornstarch dissolved in milk in a thin stream, stirring constantly, and simmer, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 2 - 3 minutes.
  • Take the cornstarch syrup off the heat, add vanilla and stir. Let the cornstarch syrup cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.
  • Beat softened butter until fluffy and white, about 3 - 4 minutes.
  • Add the cornstarch syrup in batches, whipping each time to a homogeneous mass so that you end up with an airy cream.
  • Add rum or cognac and whip again briefly.

Making the mini cakes

  • Soak half of the cookies from the inside with the sugar syrup.
  • Let the fondant melt slowly in a hot water bath (do not heat it above 50 °C) until it becomes thick, then remove it from the water bath.
  • Leaving a small amount of the white fondant for decorating, add cocoa powder to the remaining fondant and mix until thick, adding warm water drop by drop as needed if the mixture is too dry.
  • Dip the outside of the second half of the sponge cookies, which have not been dipped with the sugar syrup, into the fondant chocolate icing and let dry briefly.
  • Decorate the sponge cookies covered with the fondant chocolate icing as desired with the white fondant set aside and let them dry briefly again.
  • Spread the butter cream on the sponge cookies soaked with the sugar syrup and place one cookie with the fondant chocolate icing on each cookie with the cream.
  • Refrigerate the mini cakes "Bouchee" for a few hours.

Notes

  • Carefully and briefly add the egg yolks to the stiffly beaten egg whites, so that the egg white mass does not lose its firmness.
  • The sponge dough must be processed (baked) immediately, it must not be left to stand.
  • Be sure to simmer the cornstarch syrup for the filling for a few minutes so that the cream does not taste like cornstarch later.
  • Butter, the cornstarch syrup and alcohol need to be room warm and all about the same temperature when whipped together to make the cream so they can combine well.
  • You can omit alcohol for the filling.
  • The temperature of the sugar syrup for the fondant, to which it must be cooked, is very important. It is best to use a kitchen thermometer to measure it.
  • Do not overdo it with the lemon juice that you add to the sugar syrup for fondant. Otherwise, the sugar syrup might not be able to be whipped into fondant.
  • Just pour off the sugar syrup for the fondant into a clean bowl after cooking, and don't scrape anything off the side of the saucepan with a spoon so that any sugar crystals don't get into the syrup.
  • You can prepare the fondant in advance and store it wrapped in plastic wrap in the refrigerator for up to two months.
  • When melting the fondant, never overheat it – melt it slowly in a bain-marie and do not heat it above 50 °C.
  • If the fondant chocolate icing is too dry after adding cocoa powder, add warm water drop by drop until the icing has the necessary consistency.
  • Note the detailed tips and tricks for making the mini cakes "Bouchee" at the top of the post.