Mango & Nutella Monte Carlo, Italian Buttercream and Shipmate's Homecoming!

Before the summer officially end, I would like to share you my non traditional Monte Carlo recipe. I learned about Monte Carlo during my European Cakes & Pastries class in baking school. Honestly, it's the least of my favorite so I wanted to re-create it as my own version and of my own liking. Well, Monte Carlo is not bad at all.

The traditional recipe is from the city of Monte Carlo located in the Principality of Monaco... just a few minutes east of Nice France. The Monte Carlo gateaux is composed of  soft, chewy almond dacquoise, layers of fresh peach slices, sweet peach compote, mask of chantilly cream or vanilla buttercream and generous sprinkles of toasted, almond slivers. And because I'm not a fan of peaches, I didn't really adore this cake. But hey! I still believe in Monte Carlo, I wanted to give it a chance, I once made a plated dessert experiment with Monte Carlo theme for one competition, and this beautiful cake inspired me to create another try, a Mango & Nutella Monte Carlo this time.

Another thought of the moment is to whip a buttercream recipe with egg whites instead of egg yolks. I just feel sad for egg whites that it had to be always set aside, I thought could egg whites feel a little discrimination here? Most of the left overs are egg whites because egg yolks are often used in buttercream, especially French Buttercream. and just to try! I made my Italian Buttercream instead for my Monte Carlo hybrid.

Mise en place for the Almond dacquoise

Almond Dacquoise

1 cup Egg whites

1 cup Sugar

1/2 cup All Purpose Flour

1/2 cup Almond meal, I preferred coarse meal

First step is to sift together flour and almond meal. Then in a bowl, whip egg whites and sugar until stiff peaks. Carefully fold the dry mixture into the meringue, avoid over mixing or the meringue will get too loose to shape. This recipe yields for 3 pieces 8 inch round meringue disks.

Pipe or pour the meringue on Silpat or good parchment paper. I wanted to make even sizes of 8 inch round meringue so I patterned it with 8 inch round ring mold.

You need 3 pieces of baked Almond dacquoise for this cake.

Preheat the oven at 160/160 C. I forgot to preheat ahead of time, my bad!

Mickey Meringue: Bake the meringue for about 1 hour until the disks are golden brown and crisp.

Love this set up, as if I'm looking on a cook book cover page

Stages of cooking syrup: Scalding (Upper left), Boiling (Upper right), Thread stage (Lower left), and Soft Boil stage (Lower right)

Vanilla Italian Buttercream

2 bars Butter, unsalted (about 225g per bar)

1/2 cup Egg whites

1 cup Sugar

1/2 cup Water

1 tsp Madagascar Vanilla

Make an Italian meringue by whipping egg whites in the mixer, then pour the hot, soft stage cooked syrup and continue whipping until stiff peaks. Once the meringue has cooled down slightly, change the attachment to paddle attachment and start dropping cubes of butter one at a time. Continue whipping until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Italian Vanilla Buttercream

Oh good bye Summer!

Philippine mangoes are one of the beautiful gems of this country

Baked Almond Dacquoise.

Layer the Almond dacquoise with Italian Vanilla buttercream, mango slices and generous swirls of Nutella. You may put more Nutella of course!

I know you want more Nutella, so go for it :)

After the top most layer of meringue, mask the cake with Italian Vanilla Buttercream

Looking good

If your cake is not even, because meringue tends to be rustic in shape especially the edges... level it with more buttercream.

Butter cake crumbs: I make my own by toasting left over butter cake or butter cake trimmings and crushing it in Food processor, I prefer mine to be coarse and not strained to have the bite and texture.

Mask of Butter cake crumbs gives this pretty gateaux  a sweet, rough, crunch.

Mango & Nutella Monte Carlo; layers of almond dacqouise, vanilla Italian buttercream, Philippine mango slices, Nutella swirls, mango compote dots, chocolate decors and mask of butter cake crumbs.

Closer.

Closer look

Mango & Nutella Monte Carlo

Belle <3

Fzam's homecoming was out of his emergency leave, we took this time to also see each other after 6 years or so since he moved to Virginia. Fzam is the guy in high school that was always picked on by the "cool" dudes, and as a boy he was vulnerable to the wrong company, wrong decisions and wrong vices.

For that friend who saw me through thick and thin, saw me through my awkward years in high school, the one who saw the beauty in my ugliness, the one who adores my baking and stupidity HAHA and always give me happy thoughts, Fzam, I want you to know that I'm really proud of where you are now. You are a good friend, good son and good brother. The times when you are lost are gone already, you passed through your tests and now look at you! I'm so happy and proud of you!

One of the best thing that happened in Fzam's homecoming is gaining another friend, Vincent. Well Vincent was my classmate in Junior high school but (I know you are reading this, please don't kill me)... we never really had good laughs together nor talked about anything cool before. It was a eureka of friendship! haha. Hey please let me read your novel, I would lalalala-love to!

Vincent, Me and Fzam at early dinner

 And my another favorite is to be able to get together with my favorite people in high school. Though incomplete, these boys are my brothers from different wombs. I just miss them sooo! every jokes, every picking on each other, everything! Friendships that has no drama yet stands the test of time. I love you Genaro, JC, Mark, Fzam, Vincent and Rowelyn.

At the Fernandez's, few hours before Fzam's flight back to the US.

Fzam reminded me of my overdue promise to bake him a birth day cake;so now let me catch up with my promise at the same time, remind him of our friendship trinkets HAHA

#Groupie #Groufie #GroupSelfie #Whatever #Fzam #SendOff #Hourssary #Shipmate #Slang #AmBoy #TakeCare #Like #CareBears #Smartphone #Kobe8 #Monopod #LouisVuitton #9yearsOfFriendship

Advance Happy Fathers' Day! Enjoy your Fathers' Day weekend. And to my first love...I love you Papa, you are my superman. You are my epitome of someone to marry.  I miss you and I wish I can hug you tight. Thank you for loving me beyond the further which where you are right now. 

And to my three handsome brothers, for always looking after me, especially Michael who stood up like a dad to me. You guys are not perfect, you got your own failures and mistakes. Whenever I'm not okay I never needed to spill a word, you just knew it when I'm not okay and give me doughnuts or other sweet stuff, as if I'm still a kid. I will be very careful when it comes to love, I know its perils. I know that I have three brothers who will get hurt If get hurt. I love you three.

Love and even better,