Become a Great Baker #3: Opera Cake Quartet

In this lesson you are going to learn what Joconde is, what it is mostly used for, and how to make a traditional French almond sponge cake, which serves as the base for the Opera Cake.

In this lesson you are going to learn what Joconde is, what it is mostly used for, and how to make a traditional French almond sponge cake, which serves as the base for the Opera Cake.

In this lesson Irit demonstrates how to make French buttercream, which is a delicious and very versatile filling. It's a tasty and rich filling that can be used for many purposes. You'll also learn how to flavor it with coffee and create coffee-flavored butter cream, which is one of the layers of the opera cake.

In this lesson Irit demonstrates how to make French buttercream, which is a delicious and very versatile filling. It's a tasty and rich filling that can be used for many purposes. You'll also learn how to flavor it with coffee and create coffee-flavored butter cream, which is one of the layers of the opera cake.

In this lesson you’ll learn how to make a traditional basic dark chocolate ganache, which is a great filling used in many pastry projects. It is an easy and quick recipe that you definitely want to master. We’ll use the ganache as one of the layers of the opera cake, as well as for the topping in one of the designs we make.

In this lesson Irit demonstrates how to make light-colored chocolate ganache, that's made of milk and white chocolate. It's a great filling used in many pastry projects. We’ll use this ganache to decorate the topping of one of the Opera Cake designs.

In this lesson Irit demonstrates how to make light-colored chocolate ganache, that's made of milk and white chocolate. It's a great filling used in many pastry projects. We’ll use this ganache to decorate the topping of one of the Opera Cake designs.

In this lesson you’ll make Simple Syrup, a quick and easy recipe, which is mostly used to moisten the layers of cakes.

The Opera Cake is made of no less than 9 layers! In this lesson you’ll learn how to assemble the Opera Cake: how to build it layer by layer inside a cake ring, using all of the elements we made earlier.

The Opera Cake is made of no less than 9 layers! In this lesson you’ll learn how to assemble the Opera Cake: how to build it layer by layer inside a cake ring, using all of the elements we made earlier.

In this lesson Irit provides an overview of the process of covering the top of the Opera Cake using different kinds of glaze.

In this lesson you’ll learn how to create the final layer of the cake using stunning dark chocolate glaze, which gives the cake a fancy classic look.

In this lesson Irit demonstrates how to create a unique and modern top for the Opera cake, using 2 different types of ganache and clear glaze.

Chocolate plaques are great decorations for many cake and pastry projects. In the next 2 lessons we’ll learn how to create dark chocolate plaques with and without patterns. We'll use these plaques to decorate the sides of the cake and give it a modern twist.

In this lesson Irit demonstrates how to create dark chocolate plaques that are decorated with coffee bean patterns. These plaques will be used to decorate the sides of the cake and give it a modern twist as well as to hint to the flavor of the cake.

In this lesson you’ll learn how to create dark chocolate plaques. These plaques will be used to decorate the sides of the cake and give it a modern twist, and can also be used for many other decoration projects.

In the next few lessons we are going to explore how to unmold and decorate the cakes to give to give them their final look. We are going to explore several techniques and designs, each of which is beautiful and unique.

In this lesson you'll learn several ways to decorate Opera Cakes, using fresh and colorful fruits. Irit demonstrates how to design a unique festive look by creating a beautiful flower on top of the cake.

In this lesson you'll learn several ways to decorate Opera Cakes, using fresh and colorful fruits. Irit demonstrates how to design a unique festive look by creating a beautiful flower on top of the cake.

In this lesson we’ll explore techniques to create individual Opera Cakes that can be served as plated desserts.

In this lesson we’ll explore several interesting techniques to decorate the Opera Cake and transform it into a beautiful creation of edible art.

In this lesson we’ll explore several interesting techniques to decorate the Opera Cake and transform it into a beautiful creation of edible art.

In some people’s mind tempering is only done by professional pastry chefs, however you're about to discover that you can easily temper chocolate at home, even if you don’t have much experience or expensive equipment. In this lecture you’ll learn a great deal about tempering chocolate: why it's important, when it's best to use it and for which purposes. You'll also explore the two methods you can use for chocolate tempering: either manually or by using a tempering machine. Irit covers the advantages and disadvantages of each method, and explains when it's appropriate to use each of them.

In this lesson you’ll learn a great technique for tempering chocolate manually, which Irit perfected over years of experience working with chocolate. You’ll discover how simple it is to temper chocolate at home even if you don't have any experience. In fact, all you need is a little bit of patience and a chocolate thermometer, which is not expensive and can be easily found in most specialty stores.

Our discussion of tempering wouldn’t be complete without covering the subject of using a machine to temper chocolate. Using a machine has many advantages over manual tempering. In this lesson irit covers the different kinds of machines available to you, and explains how to pick a machine that's right for your needs. You'll also get a demo of running a full tempering cycle using a machine.

A brief summary of everything you learned in this course.

In this lesson you'll find all recipe books that are used throughout the Opera Cake Quartet course, as well as other downloadable documents that you'll need. All course materials are delivered in digital format as PDF documents, or MS Excel spreadsheets. We recommend downloading all of them to your hard drive, saving them and printing them as required. Here is a list of the materials:

1. Class Companion: 20 pages eBook with all recipes, additional important info, tips and tricks

2. Project Timeline: a bird's-eye view of the cake preparation process

3. Several Food Cost Calculators: calculate costs to make the different Opera Cake designs (requires Microsoft Excel)

4. Where to get required tools: a PDF document that lists most tools and materials used in this course, with purchase links