-Baking is not that difficult.
You really have to just follow
all the steps,
read the recipe,
prepare all the ingredients,
doing a little bit of work
before you get into baking.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Dominique Ansel,
pastry chef in New York City
at Dominique Ansel Bakery.
So today we're going
to be making
chocolate and peanut
butter cake.
The bottom is chocolaty
and crunchy.
The mousse is creamy, and it's
finished off with a ganache.
One of the recipes
of my new coming book,
"Everyone Can Bake."
First step is
the caramelized puffed rice.
We're going to use this
as a base for our cake.
So here we have
some puffed rice.
I have corn syrup.
They all find the corn syrup
comes quite thick,
almost like a honey consistency.
I put it in microwave.
It's going to liquefy
the corn syrup.
Pour over the puffed rice,
add granulated sugar.
So once we have the sugar mix up
together,
we're going to sprinkle
just like this.
Not too much on the tray.
We're going to place this
in the oven at 350 degrees
until it's caramelized.
So this is about ready.
It's been in the oven
for about 15 minutes.
It's, like,
light golden caramelized.
We have caramelized puffed rice,
and we're going to mix it
with the chocolate.
I'm going to put this in the
microwave just for a little bit.
[ Microwave beeps ]
So I usually don't use
microwave that much,
but I find it, like, very easy
to melt chocolate.
You can see it's perfectly
melted very quickly.
Once our chocolate is fully
melted, and it should be hot,
so we're just going
to pour everything at once.
The goal here is really to coat
all the crispy rice
with the chocolate.
You could also, like,
just keep this
in your fridge in the kitchen
and eat it with breakfast.
I use a ring mold.
Then to make it easier
to release from the ring mold,
I use an acetate sheet.
So it's the same height
as the ring mold.
I just place it inside.
Then while this is, like,
still warm,
I'm going to pour
this caramelized
puffed rice on the bottom,
and I'm going to push it down,
and it's going to be
a very nice,
like, crunchy caramelized layer
on the bottom of the cake.
Once we have our base ready,
we're going to place this
in the fridge until it's cold
and our mousse is ready.
Now we're ready for
our peanut butter mousse.
It's actually quite simple.
The first step is going to be
to mix the gelatin
powder into the water.
While the gelatin is setting,
we're going to make
what we call a caramel glaze.
Start off with some yolks
and some sugar.
Just a little whisk.
That will do the trick.
We're going to put the milk
in the pot, medium heat,
and we're going to
bring this to a boil.
Take just a little bit of this
and pour into the yolks.
This step is called tempering.
Tempering is very important.
You want to make sure you don't
pour the boiling milk
into the yolks right away.
It will cook the yolks
immediately,
so you pour a bit
of hot milk into the yolks.
You stir it a little bit.
Then we're going to add
the yolks mixture back
into the pot with the milk,
and we're going to cook this
on the stove very, very slowly.
So we're going to go
very low heat.
If you try to boil it
or go too fast,
it's going to cook the yolks,
and that's not
what we're looking for.
So always stirring the pot
and scraping the bottom.
I always go to the middle a
little bit and then to the side.
And see here,
this is getting quite thick,
almost, like, creamy.
The caramel glaze is now
pretty much done.
I'm going to add the gelatin.
As you can see, it's, like,
fully set.
I'm just going to scoop it,
place it into the caramel glaze.
While it's still hot
is the perfect moment.
Give it a good whisk,
and then we're going to
add our peanut butter.
Simple peanut butter here.
I also like the chunky one,
the one with the pieces.
It's really up to you.
You don't have to have
something smooth,
and while it's still hot,
so the peanut butter
is actually going to melt
into the caramel glaze.
It smells so good.
One of my childhood memories,
my mom bringing this spread,
this beautiful brown
and smooth spread.
She, like, spread it
on the baguette.
I ate it as a snack as a kid,
and she bought it once,
and then she bought it
a second time,
and then the supermarket
was out of stock,
and I never had it again.
And the next time
I had peanut butter was actually
when I first came to America,
and I had a flashback.
It took me back to
when I was a kid
eating a snack with my mom,
and I was like,
"This is what it was.
That was peanut butter
that I ate."
I love peanut butter.
It's comfort food for me.
So once we add the peanut butter
here,
dish becomes quite thick,
so no to worry.
We're going to put this
on the side,
and while this is cooling down
a little bit,
we're going to whip our cream.
Just heavy cream,
and we're going to whip this
until what we call
the medium peak,
so not too soft, not too firm.
We're actually going to
pour this into a mixing bowl
just to help
cooling it down a little bit.
The consistency should be
pretty much like a light
whipped cream, still soft.
We're going to add just, like,
maybe, like, two little spoons
in the beginning.
Mix this very gently.
So now I'm going to add the rest
of the whipped cream right here.
So we keep the volume,
and we're going to have a nice,
very light texture
and consistency,
and once I don't see the cream
anymore, that's it.
Beautiful.
This is fully set now.
I'm going to pour the mousse
into the center
so I can fill it to the top,
and with an offset spatula,
I'm going to smooth out the top
and make it flat,
and I use the side
of the acetate here to scrape
my spatula
to keep everything clean.
If you have a little bit
of leftover,
you can always put this
in a mixing bowl
and eat it for breakfast.
We've got to put this
in the freezer now.
And now into our ganache.
So a ganache is a preparation
with just cream
and chocolate and butter.
We're going to use the ganache
to glaze the cake.
We're going to start
with the cream,
and we're going to bring it
to a boil.
Then we have our chocolate.
It is the same chocolate
I used earlier, 66% chocolate.
I put half of the cream,
just melt everything until
it's all combined and smooth.
I'm going to add the rest of the
cream and still leave it warm,
and here the entire chocolate
will be fully melted.
Everything is smooth and melted.
We're going to add
our room-temperature butter.
That's very important.
You want the butter
to slowly melt into the ganache.
Nice, shiny color,
and it is ready
to place our cake.
Place the cake
on a glazing rack.
It's still frozen,
and we just removed
the ring mold and the acetate.
Plastic wrap into a sheet tray
underneath.
So the trick for this
is to go fast.
I'm going to pour everything
in the center.
I'm going to put a lot of it
just right here.
Then I'm going
to take my spatula,
and I'm going to push everything
to the side, just right here.
We can see I missed a little
spot right here, which is okay.
I'm going to take a little bit
more of the ganache
and add it to this side
right here.
Once the cake is glazed,
slide it under the cake.
Lift it up a little bit
and put your hand under.
I like to use all of my fingers
to hold it straight,
and I'm going to use the back
of the spatula to scrape
all the little excess that drips
down on the bottom of the cake.
[ Laughter ]
I have done this a few times.
I'm going to use the full length
of the spatula
and drop my cake right in
the middle of my cake board.
And this is a really cool trick.
You just fold it in half.
You lift it up.
You don't have to get too dirty,
and then you take the top,
and you squeeze it down,
and now you
have saved everything
and keep everything
pretty much clean.
I saved a little bit
of the caramelized puffed rice
that is coated with chocolate,
and I'm going to place
a few pieces on the side.
I like to put quite a bit
on one side,
and then I'll add a few pieces
of the toasted peanuts.
So I keep this quite simple.
We're going to slice
into the cake.
A hot knife to cut through it
very, very clean
and very easily.
You can hear this, like,
beautiful sound of, like,
this crunchy bottom.
I can feel the mousse, like,
very soft and tender.
We have, like, a few
different textures right here
that makes this cake
really unique.
And here's a perfect slice.
Mmm, really good.
The bottom is caramelized
and chocolaty and crunchy,
and it's finished off
with a ganache
that is creamy
on the outside, as well.
Three different textures,
very simple recipe,
something you can do
at home very easily.
I hope you enjoy the recipe
and the book
and that you find
your own way to be creative.
If you want the recipe,
click on the link below
or just buy the book.
And one of the question I ask
people all the time is, like,
"What is the first thing
you've ever done in a kitchen?"
and 99 percent of the time,
people tell me that it's
something sweet -- cake, a pie,
a tart, a cookie that
you've done with your mother,
with your grandma,
performed childhood memories.
