Raspberry and Grand Marnier Cream Cake Tart

Holy guacamole! This was the most challenging one to date. It is a true miracle that a tart emerged from all that chaos. I think I was cursing the whole time, and at one point, even considered giving up baking entirely… But somehow, I pulled through. And the result was surprisingly good (a miracle, I tell you!).

The trouble was with the Chiboust cream, the vanilla speckled sensation. I’d baked the tart crust (the sweet cream crust was just per-fect) and the sponge cake layers (not bad either) the day before. I even reconstituted frozen raspberries as they were defrosting (don’t ask how!). And on the designated day, I got up literally at the crack of dawn to make the Chiboust cream and assemble the tart. I think I may have just been sleepwalking (perhaps my “meditation” time really is necessary) because I made the biggest baking blunder – I forgot to reduce all the ingredients uniformly. The tart only called for a portion of the Chiboust recipe, and I reduced all the ingredients – except the sugar. And so my cream came out all lumpy. I knew this wasn’t right, so I dumped the whole concoction down the drain and tried again. And then again. And then yet again. I briefly considered giving up and going back to bed. But I was having a “potluck brunch” in a couple of hours and the tart was really the centerpiece. Sometimes having no choice is the only thing that propels you forward…

In the end, I wasted about two hours of time that could have been spent sleeping, two very precious vanilla bean pods that were flown in from the U.S., rare and expensive (in Korea) gelatin, and just lots and lots of sugar and eggs. No pictures document this disaster.

On the bright side, assembling the tart went relatively smoothly. Standard stacking and spreading. The sponge cake didn’t fit quite as snugly as hoped (strange, it was baked in the same pan, but seems to have shrunk a whole centimeter). But the almond slices around the edge were an ingenious solution to soggy crust (all hail Grandmaster Beranbaum!).

The layers: sweet cream crust sealed with raspberry jam, light sponge cake doused with Grand Marnier, thick layer of Chiboust cream dotted with raspberries, another layer of sponge cake, thin layer of freshly whipped cream topped with reconstituted raspberries

And it tasted awesome. The liqueur lent a slight but noticeable kick, and the tartness of the raspberries complemented the cream quite well. It was almost like the slices of cake sold in coffee shops, though not with the same finish, but more flavorful and much much fresher.

All’s well that ends well.