Shortbread Biscuit Cake (Gâteaux aux petits beurres)
Sep1
Do you know the kind of dish you taste for the very first time, thinking “this is so good; imagine I’d have died without ever having a taste?” or “my palate just touched a piece of heaven “. This actually happens quite rarely to me. Mostly I need to acquire tastes and once I eat a certain type of food several times, I start to develop a liking for it. But this cake… I literally fell in love with it after the first bite.
When I first came to France, my husband took me to the birthday party of one of his friends (the most provençal family you can imagine by the way). That friend’s mum had made exactly the above pictured cake and when I threw a glance at it, my first thought was “this can’t taste good, it looks like a cake made by a child at vacation camp” (yes, I have such evil thoughts one in a while, I should get scolded^^). They seemed to have noticed the look on my face and just smiled before starting to serve up pieces. I saw the whole family jumping and snatching plates away, then silently devouring the whole piece with closed eyes. And when I finally decided to give it a try myself, I swore never to judge a dish by it’s looks - ever - again :p
Turns out the recipe is actually from an old issue of Mickey Mouse magazine, which is why it’s so suited for making with your kids. It’s really really quick on top and requires no baking, just some resting time in the fridge…
The only ingredient which might be hard to come by is the “brown” biscuits:
If you can’t get a hold of these, simply use shortbread biscuits, they taste almost the same.
Shortbread Biscuit Cake (Gâteaux aux petits beurres)
- 24 shortbread biscuits
- 125 ml lukewarm, strong coffee
- 1 fresh egg
- 75g powdered sugar
- 100g butter
- grated chocolate as garnish
In a bowl break the egg and add the powdered sugar. Incorporate it by stirring with a wooden spoon until the mixture takes on the texture of a sticky fluid. In a second bowl whisk the butter until it becomes fluffy then add it to the egg and sugar mixture and beat everything until you get a smooth, rather firm cream.
Get a large, flat recipient like a big plate or a platter and start out by dropping six biscuits into the coffee (one at a time). Be careful here, biscuits get soggy really quickly (just like sponge biscuits for tiramisu). So simply drop the biscuit into the coffee, count one second, flip it and count another second then remove it and start layering the plate. When the layer of six biscuits is done, cover it by a layer of 1/4th of the cream we made earlier. Continue this way until you use up all biscuits and finish with a layer of cream. Dust the cake with grated chocolate and refrigerate for three hours.
Serves 6, please make sure to refrigerate the cake well and use it up quickly as the cream contains raw egg.
PS. I challenge you to eat more of this cake than 2 pieces at a time, so far no one we know has managed! (It really stuffs :p)
