This season of Great British Bake Off gave me all the feels, and I couldn’t resist baking along. # 237: Blackberry, Pistachio & Chocolate Entremet

If you’re feeling pretentious, you can call this a joconde collar imprimé entremet. (Say that ten times fast! I’ll wait.)

Let’s break it down:

• Joconde: A kind of sponge cake that includes almond flour. It directly translates to “Mona Lisa” according to Google. Hmm okay… whatever you say, Google. Upon further digging, this appears to be slang. It may stem from the fact that an Italian name for the famous painting is La Gioconda, which translates to “jocund” (in other words, “happy” or “merry.”)
• Collar: This refers to the structure of the dessert, where a thin layer of cake wraps around a free-standing filling.
• Imprimé: An indication that there’s a design baked into the sponge cake. It translates to “print” – makes sense! Still not sure I trust Google Translate anymore though, after joconde = Mona Lisa.
• Entremet: A fancy dessert made of many layers of yummy soft things, such as mousse and sponge cake. While it translates to “dessert” in modern French, it translates to “in-between” in old French, referring to a snack or treat enjoyed between meals. Love them both.

So, if you managed to hang in there for my geeky linguistic detour, you now know that Google translate is bizarre and thinks I’ve made an in-between dessert wrapped in a printed Mona Lisa. Make of that what you will.

In other words, I made a pretty tower of mousse. This can go hang out with my other favorite mousse creation, the Charlotte Royale.

Blackberries in December?? I know, I did a double-take too. Here I was, all ready to jump into holiday baking, when a juicy mountain of farmers’ market blackberries fell into my lap. They were simply too lovely to relegate to the freezer for smoothies.

Peep the GBBO flag my mom found for me. It cheered me on as I tried to make sense of my 1/3 mini version of all my recipes. Heh, you can see the many ways I tried to incorporate pistachios before just deciding to put them in my vanilla creme diplomat. I’m a monster and I can’t be stopped!

Prepping the purple party paste.

Cheering for properly softened butter! That rare moment when I actually remember to take it out of the fridge early enough.

Looks like a party to me!

Into the freezer they go. Next time, I’ll try a more complicated design. Purple stripes felt sufficiently adorable for this time around.

Joconde time. Now all I can think of is that “jocund” means “jovial” so this is just happy cake!

First things first, fluff they egg whites.

Cloudy with a chance of egg fluff.

Cross your fingers! The purple stripes were fully frozen, but still got the pre-oven nerves.

Awww yeahhh.

Remember those glorious blackberries? Time to make some mousse.

I snapped my fingers and it became this! Just kidding – make sure to soften your gelatin in water for a few minutes before melting it, and use less than you think you need.

The other two layers were flavored diplomat creams. Start with a vanilla pastry cream, and add cocoa powder (or blitzed pistachios or whatever else you’re feeling) and whipped cream to lighten it.

Just a lil expectant cup of cake.

I had a lot of extra sponge cake (mini cake problems) so I decided to put layers of it in between the different flavors of mousse.

Macgyver-ed a double-stacked springform pan. Boom!

Voila! After an hour nap in the refrigerator, of course. Can’t rush mousse.

Ridiculously proud that it stood up on its own.

The chocolate mousse was the softest, so it would have made more sense to put it as the top layer. C’est la vie!

Happy munching!

Recipe inspired by: https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/recipes/all/chigs-black-forest-imprime-dessert/