It's Dumpling Sister's birthday today and I am usually in charge of organising the birthday cakes very last minute. However, sometimes you get stumped and want something different, and need to find some inspiration. That's how I have been feeling lately. However, Cheesecake Boy has come up with a great idea and suggested that I do birthday cake posts to help others in the same boat as me, so from now on when we have birthday or other celebratory cakes we will post them under 'birthday cakes'.
Unfortunately, by the time I got notice, well it was too late to order a cake, so a visit to Pasticceria Tamborrino a favourite of Cheesecake Boy and mine was in order. In case you ever need to know this, they open at 6.30am on Saturdays, which was good news for us as we had a birthday lunch to shop and cook for as well. In the end I settled for the bacio cake, as Dumpling Sister and I use to love eating Baci chocolates when we were kids and reading all the love notes enclosed. The cake came in a nice box with a cute pig snout handle.
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| Bacio cake, $28 (feeds 8) |
Surprisingly, the chocolate casing of the entire cake was very soft and was not a crisp chocolate shell as expected, so the candles were very easy to push into the cake without causing any damage.
Now Cupcake Girl thought the cake looked like a wonton, whereas Cheesecake Boy kept calling the cake a bag. However, one of the very ingenious aspects of this cake was that you could easily remove the ornate chocolate flower by simply lifting it up. This made it so much easier to cut the cake up.
I will admit that it was a bit more tricky to cut this cake up, as the soft chocolate casing had a leathery wonton skin texture about it, so a bit more force was required to cut this cake up.
Here comes the important part, how it tasted. First we were told that this cake had to be in the fridge for at least three to four hours prior to serving, due to one of the elements of the cake being a semifreddo. The chocolate semifreddo had chunks of hazelnuts in it. The curious thing was that the hazelnut chunks seemed to be texturally the same as the ones in Baci chocolates, this was a huge plus for me. The cake consisted of layers of semifreddo and a chocolate sponge that seemed to be lightly drenched in a hazelnut liqueur. The semifreddo really made me think of the airiness of Baci chocolates, which is always a good thing.
However, the most unusual thing about this cake was the chocolate casing, it was so soft and slightly chewy, and really made me think that if there ever was such a thing as chocolate wonton wrappers this would be it. Cheesecake Boy called it 'chocolate leather'. I guess it's not so unusual, as I have seen chocolate pasta recipes before.
Cheesecake Boy and I really enjoyed this cake, and thought it was a great interpretation of a Baci for sure. It was not overly rich and was nice and light for a chocolate cake. We also thought it was great value for money, as I was expecting it to be over the $30 mark, but not at all. If all my fussy siblings happily ate this, then you know you're on to something good.
If anyone has any cake recommendations, we'd love to hear about it.
Munching away, Dumpling Girl.
Pasticceria Tamborrino
75 Great North Road
Five Dock NSW 2046
Ph: (02) 9712 1461
http://www.pasticceriatamborrino.com.au/
7 comments:
It's hard to find an original and delicious birthday cake but this one looks really special! Good to know they're not too far away from me too.
I love Bacio but never knew they have love notes in them...I must've been too focused on the chocolate!
Busy with lots of birthdays in the family lately eh Dumpling Girl! Happy birthday to Dumpling Sister! Your "wonton flower" looks a bit like Croc Dundee's well worn akubra hat to me :) who ate all the hanging corks? :)
Quite a unique cake indeed, and with the semifreddo definitely not your usual "ice-cream" cake!
And I'm going with the notion that it looks like a cloth pouch anointed with a rose =)
oh yum! I love Baci chocolates too so I think this cake is right up my alley - thanks for sharing! I really want to try this cake now :)
Hi Jen, lol the piece of translucent paper that come with baci's are the love notes. The notes are written in numerous different languages and the writing is tiny :)
Thanks chopinand. Lol, you sure have a vivid imagination.
Hello mademoiselle délicieuse, I like your elegant notion. Let's stick with that shall we? :D
Hey Jack, glad to share with a fellow baci lover.
Aww this cake looks absolutely gorgeous!! And I used to eat Baci when I was younger all the time; I always loved reading the love notes! I would smooth them out, get rid of any chocolate bits and keep them in a little tin haha...how sad. Anyway, great cake! :)
Hello Cappucino, you sound like my sister and I, we use to keep the notes in a little pouch though, so not sad at all :)
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