TBB: The Polish Princess

I read this recipe a few times because it is 5 pages long and looks intimidating.  As I was reading it the 3rd time, it didn't look intimidating anymore and I can picture the entire process in my mind.  

I started making the pastry cream first at 7:30pm.  

I misread and somehow put all the ingredients together into the pan. I only realised my mistake later, but it is ok, I just needed to be more careful that I don't curdle the cream.  Since last minute decision to make this cake, I didn't buy vanilla pods, so I used vanilla bean paste - 1-1/2 tsp. 

Strained the pastry cream.

Pastry Cream looking great and thick. 

Covered top with cling wrap and placed it in a cool place with a fan blasting at it. 

Next, seep the tea bag in boiling water and add the lemon juice, sugar and later vodka.

While the pastry cream and syrup cooling. 

I got ready the walnuts by toasting and also soaking the raisins in hot water..(forgot to take photos)

Time to bake the cake.

Whipped the egg whites to stiff peak and add the yolks, flour, water.

Into the pan and baked for 25mins. 

While waiting..I watched TV..korean drama..lol! 

Unmold after 10mins of cooling. 

Doesn't look very tall to me.. I wondered if I did anything wrong?  

Maybe it is meant to be like that? 

All these thoughts going in my mind when I saw how thin my cake looked. 

Left the cake to cool and checked on my pastry cream. Still a little warm, so I placed the pastry cream in the fridge to expedite cooling.  In the mean time, while waiting for everything to cool down, I took a break to watch another Korean drama showing on a different channel. :P 

Cake is cooled down and so is pastry cream and syrup.

Toasted walnuts also cooled down and raisins all drained dried.

This is the fun part.. poking the cake all over..!  

Then brush 1/3 syrup.

Turn over the the spring form pan and add 2x ring of aluminium foil

Then poke the cake further with skewer..and brush remaining syrup. I got lazy and pour the syrup over the cake.. cos the brushing took forever.. 

Next, compose the pastry buttercream.  

Whipped the butter fluffy and add the pastry cream slowly. 

I used this chocolate...Lindt..quite good!

This is the raisin chocolate version.  

Very yummy. I like how fluffy it looked.

Like ice-cream!.. Taste like ice-cream too.. very yummy! 

Add the chocolate walnut buttercream later first and let it set in fridge for 1 hr.

After 1 hour later, add the raisin chocolate layer..and add the grated chocolate on top.

Cover with cake board ..which was possible for me since I had aluminium foil collar to hold it up.

And place in fridge overnight to rest for 8 hrs.  

Completed time was like 11:30pm... quite fast isn't it? :) 

Next morning, unmold the sides of spring form pan and peel of the foil. Very easy peasy!

Ta-Da!  

Wait..have to remove the base...

Then I flipped the cake over and remove the base and changed to a cake board. :)

No worries, cos the buttercream already hardened like rock overnight. 

Now it is time to cut the cake into 1/3. 

1/3 for my daughter's office, 1/3 for my office and 1/3 for home.

You can see the cake is taller in the centre..and somehow I didn't spread the cream evenly, some parts had more chocolate cream and some parts had more white layer. 

My cake in office lift. 

I wonder if my security colleagues wondering what I am doing in the lift..taking selfie or what? LOL!  

A slice of cake for breakfast! 

In the beginning I was worried how fattening the pastry cream was going to be with so much butter and all. But then I tasted it, I forgot about all that. It was so sinfully good! Hard not to just lick the cream and eat it own its own when assembling the cake.  

Everyone in office who tasted it liked it.  

Only my daughter didn't like the cake because it had too much cream, she prefers less cream and more cake.   However, she said all her colleagues who tried liked it, said the cake was delicious.