Hey!
I've been working on this rather complex project for a while, and today I think it is ready to be shared!
It is a 15 cm personal cake that consists of four parts: crispy crust, tea jelly, chocolate marshmallow and coffee foam.
It is only 259 kcal for entire thing, this is achieved mainly thanks to some of the most volume friendly ingredients – water and air. Crust itself is 185 kcal. Don't get fooled by 15 cm radius, it well makes up for it with thickness and is very voluminous.
As you might imagine from listed components, it tastes bittersweet – and that is what I wanted it to be.
I tried snapping as many pics of process as I could, hope those will make things clearer! Each individual part is easy on it's own. Oh, and for simpler version you can do just do crust + 2x amount of any single filler of choice.
Recipe for 15cm round mold:
A. Tea Jelly
I prep this in advance together with second part (marshmallow) in the evening and let it set overnight.
Ingredients:
150g Hot tea to taste, better if stronger and sweeter than you would normally drink (I used 1 teabag and 4 sweetener tablets for 150g water)
50g Cold water
8g Gelatin (this is more than for regular jelly, it is a load bearing jelly and we need it to be stiffer)
Bloom gelatin in cold water for around 10 minutes, pour hot tea over it and mix until gelatin dissolves. Transfer to mold and set aside (I use silicone mold, as I don't have small enough other type of mold).
B. Hot Chocolate Marshmallow
Ingredients:
33g Cold Water
9g Gelatin
Pinch of Cream of Tartar (optional)
Pinch of Xanthan Gum (optional)
Splash of vanilla extract (kinda optional)
40g Boiling water
18g Granulated sweetener (I use erythritol; more is better, I tried keeping it to bare minimum since this recipe overall uses a lot of sugar alcohol)
1g Cocoa powder (be careful with this, as cocoa actively prevents marshmallow from whipping, you can use more if you want, but you will get something like dense darker chocolate foam/mousse instead of marshmallow, which isn't a bad thing either, I tried. 1g is very mild chocolate taste and color)
Bloom gelatin in cold water for around 10 minutes and in the mean time bring rest of the water to boil and fully dissolve sweetener and cocoa in it, then let it cool for a bit. Add cream of tartar, xanthan gum and vanilla extract to gelatin, pour chocolate syrup over it and whip until you get stiff peaks, do not settle on soft peaks! It generally takes a lot of time to get there (10+ minutes for normal sized batches), and cocoa only makes it harder, but for portion this small it only took me 4 minutes.
Add marshmallow mixture to the mold, over tea jelly (it will float, don't worry). Try spreading it so it covers entire area, it won't be easy as it is atop of still liquid tea (I never wait for it to set first, bet it would make things much easier), but no need to try too hard either, as it will be covered with coffee layer anyway.
Let this cool to room temperature (if not already), then put into fridge and cover with something. I leave it overnight to set.
Once set, carefully take this thing out of the mold and put it back in the fridge, as we gonna need this same mold (or identical one) to bake our crust.
C. Crust
Ingredients:
20g Cold water
5g Granulated sweetener (I use erythritol, again, can use more if desired, but carob brings enough sweetness for me)
3g Instant coffee (can be decaf, can skip entirely tbh)
20g Greek yogurt (mine is 2.5% fat)
Splash of vanilla extract
20g AP flour
20g Cornstarch
12g Carob powder
Pinch of salt
Pinch of cinnamon (optional, I just had it nearby, ready for decorations)
Mix dry ingredients (6-10). Dissolve coffee and sweetener in cold water, mix with greek yogurt and vanilla extract. Sift in dry ingredients (you really want to sift in, as carob powder tends to clump up quite a bit), mix until you get something that looks and feels like ball of clay. Press it into mold (don't roll). Try spreading it evenly to best of your ability, as we want it to be crispy and brittle to mimic shortcrust without any fat (this dough has 1g fat total), thick patches will feel very bread-like. Once done, poke a bunch of holes in the bottom and put it into pre-heated air frier for 17 minutes at 160C (I never tried this in normal oven, but feel free to try). Once done, take it out of the mold and put on wire rack or upside down (or both) to cool to room temperature, then put it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Once it is cold, take your jelly-marshmallow filling and just… carefully put it in. It will naturally be a bit bigger, but flexible, so will fit and sit tightly. At this point cake is basically ready, some might want to skip last part, as that coffee topping might be not to everyone's liking! If not skipping, then put cake back into fridge for now.
D. Dalgona coffee
This is something I myself only learned very very recently, I was surprised that this even works! However, this foam does not last long, so must be prepared and applied right before consumption, and then consumed ASAP. Even with xanthan gum added for stability, after 10 minutes it already is noticeably weaker density than first minute. Also, both coffee and sweetener contribute to structure, so if you find it too bitter or too sweet, oh well, reducing either will affect quality, not just taste.
I myself really like it, but again, I can see some might want to skip this step entirely due to either taste or high sugar alcohol/caffeine content.
Ingredients:
30g Cold water
5g Instant coffee (can be decaf)
15g Granulated sweetener (I use erythritol)
Pinch of Xanthan Gum (optional)
Mix all ingredients and whip at max speed for couple of minutes until stiff peaks and it is pale. Take your cake out of the fridge, apply coffee foam, sprinkle some negligible amount of whatever for extra decor (I still counted that cinnamon and coconut flakes as 10 kcal, but there sure wasn't that much of them). Perhaps would have been a good idea to pipe this foam for better presentation, but it is what it is!
Note that this cake is not very sliceable, crust is very brittle. I did small slice just for this post, but normally I just… bite.
Hope I did not forget any important steps!
by xen32
Dining and Cooking