Nescafe Cake

Nescafe Cake

I got a request to make this cake (http://littlelifeofmine.com/2012/07/nescafe-cake.html) by a coworker. Ask and you shall receive. For those of you who don't know what Nescafe cake is, it is very similar to tiramisu except instead of ladyfingers, tea biscuits are used and instead of mascarpone cheese, whipped cream is used. This recipe was super easy so please attempt! 

Twist

It also happened to be another coworker's birthday and she wanted chocolate. Since this recipe was a little too easy , I added a little chocolate twist. I added two layers of chocolate dipped tea biscuits. I used this recipe (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-ganache/) for chocolate ganahce  and it yielded almost enough chocolate ganache to dip all the biscuits. This ganache recipe is great and can be used for a variety of things such as chocolate covered strawberries or as substitute frosting for cupcakes. I ended up using about 4.25 sleeves of Kedem brand  tea biscuits for the whole cake recipe of which about 2 where dipped in chocolate.

1. First measure out 9 ounces of chocolate in a bowl that hot cream will  eventually be poured into and biscuits will be dipped in. I used semi-sweet chocolate chips. Also prepare two cooling racks by placing wax paper below and spraying the racks with non-stick spray.

2. Boil 1 cup of heavy whipping cream. Make sure you keep an eye on it. It will bubble up before you know it.

3. When the cream reaches a boil (it bubbled rapidly at the edges, not quite the middle), pour the cream into the bowl with the chocolate.

4. Whisk the chocolate cream mixture until you get a nice smooth ganache. You may also add a little rum or another type of sweet spirit at this stage.

5. It doesn't take long for the ganache to cool down enough so that it doesn't burn you. You want it to be a warm so it can still adhere to the biscuits. Take a biscuit and dip it long side down grabbing the biscuit on a corner. Rotate the biscuit and dip the undipped side grabbing the same corner

6. Place the biscuit on the cooling rack. When all of the biscuits are done, place the cooling racks in the fridge so the ganache can firm up. I dipped 52 biscuits in total which is almost 2 sleeves of biscuits.

Nescafe Cake

1. Start by boiling 2 cups of water in a pot. When the water starts boiling, whisk in 1/4 cup of instant coffee/espresso granules. Take the pot off the burner and let it cool while you prepare the cream. Once the coffee cools, I added a little bit of Kahlua.

2. Place two cups of cream in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk on high until the cream gets soft peaks (see http://www.finecooking.com/articles/whipping-soft-medium-firm-peaks.aspx for what soft peaks are), which should take 2-3 minutes.

3.  Fold in 14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk into the whipped cream. Make sure there are no more streaks of condensed milk in the end.


4. In a 9" x 13" dish, place your first layer of chocolate covered biscuits. I would use the biscuits you dipped last since they will likely be the least pretty. Save the nicest biscuits for the top.

5. Pour a little bit of the coffee mixture into a shallow bowl. This is where you'll quickly soak the non-chocolate covered biscuits in. Once the coffee level gets too low, add more coffee.

6. Dip a few biscuits at a time into the coffee flipping them over to make sure both sides soak up coffee. They should be in for about 4 seconds.

(Sorry, bad picture).

7. You'll want to place down two layers of coffee soaked biscuits.

8. Scrape half the cream on top of the coffee soaked biscuits.

9. Add one layer of chocolate biscuits, one (not two) more layer of coffee soaked biscuits, then the rest of the cream.

10. If you want, you can add cocoa powder to the top. A little trick is to place a cleaned cooling rack on top and sift the cocoa powder through the rack. This will give you a nice grid pattern like my cake.

11. You will need to protect this cake with your life, it will go fast!