Peanut Butter Chocolate Crunch Cake with Dominique Ansel – How To

-Baking is not that difficult.

You really have to just followall the steps, read the recipe, prepare all the ingredients, doing a little bit of workbefore you get into baking.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Dominique Ansel, pastry chef in New York Cityat Dominique Ansel Bakery.

So today we're goingto be making chocolate and peanutbutter cake.

The bottom is chocolatyand crunchy.

The mousse is creamy, and it'sfinished off with a ganache.

One of the recipesof my new coming book, “Everyone Can Bake.

” First step isthe caramelized puffed rice.

We're going to use thisas a base for our cake.

So here we havesome puffed rice.

I have corn syrup.

They all find the corn syrupcomes quite thick, almost like a honey consistency.

I put it in microwave.

It's going to liquefythe corn syrup.

Pour over the puffed rice, add granulated sugar.

So once we have the sugar mix uptogether, we're going to sprinklejust like this.

Not too much on the tray.

We're going to place thisin the oven at 350 degrees until it's caramelized.

So this is about ready.

It's been in the ovenfor about 15 minutes.

It's, like, light golden caramelized.

We have caramelized puffed rice, and we're going to mix itwith the chocolate.

I'm going to put this in themicrowave just for a little bit.

[ Microwave beeps ] So I usually don't usemicrowave that much, but I find it, like, very easyto melt chocolate.

You can see it's perfectlymelted very quickly.

Once our chocolate is fullymelted, and it should be hot, so we're just goingto pour everything at once.

The goal here is really to coat all the crispy ricewith the chocolate.

You could also, like, just keep this in your fridge in the kitchenand eat it with breakfast.

I use a ring mold.

Then to make it easierto release from the ring mold, I use an acetate sheet.

So it's the same heightas the ring mold.

I just place it inside.

Then while this is, like, still warm, I'm going to pourthis caramelized puffed rice on the bottom, and I'm going to push it down, and it's going to bea very nice, like, crunchy caramelized layeron the bottom of the cake.

Once we have our base ready, we're going to place this in the fridge until it's coldand our mousse is ready.

Now we're ready forour peanut butter mousse.

It's actually quite simple.

The first step is going to beto mix the gelatin powder into the water.

While the gelatin is setting, we're going to makewhat we call a caramel glaze.

Start off with some yolksand some sugar.

Just a little whisk.

That will do the trick.

We're going to put the milkin the pot, medium heat, and we're going tobring this to a boil.

Take just a little bit of thisand pour into the yolks.

This step is called tempering.

Tempering is very important.

You want to make sure you don'tpour the boiling milk into the yolks right away.

It will cook the yolksimmediately, so you pour a bitof hot milk into the yolks.

You stir it a little bit.

Then we're going to addthe yolks mixture back into the pot with the milk, and we're going to cook thison the stove very, very slowly.

So we're going to govery low heat.

If you try to boil itor go too fast, it's going to cook the yolks, and that's notwhat we're looking for.

So always stirring the potand scraping the bottom.

I always go to the middle alittle bit and then to the side.

And see here, this is getting quite thick, almost, like, creamy.

The caramel glaze is nowpretty 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 hotis the perfect moment.

Give it a good whisk, and then we're going toadd 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 havesomething smooth, and while it's still hot, so the peanut butter is actually going to meltinto the caramel glaze.

It smells so good.

One of my childhood memories, my mom bringing this spread, this beautiful brownand smooth spread.

She, like, spread iton the baguette.

I ate it as a snack as a kid, and she bought it once, and then she bought ita second time, and then the supermarketwas out of stock, and I never had it again.

And the next timeI had peanut butter was actually when I first came to America, and I had a flashback.

It took me back towhen I was a kid eating a snack with my mom, and I was like, “This is what it was.

That was peanut butterthat I ate.

” I love peanut butter.

It's comfort food for me.

So once we add the peanut butterhere, dish becomes quite thick, so no to worry.

We're going to put thison the side, and while this is cooling downa little bit, we're going to whip our cream.

Just heavy cream, and we're going to whip this until what we callthe medium peak, so not too soft, not too firm.

We're actually going topour this into a mixing bowl just to helpcooling it down a little bit.

The consistency should bepretty much like a light whipped cream, still soft.

We're going to add just, like, maybe, like, two little spoonsin the beginning.

Mix this very gently.

So now I'm going to add the restof the whipped cream right here.

So we keep the volume, and we're going to have a nice, very light textureand consistency, and once I don't see the creamanymore, that's it.

Beautiful.

This is fully set now.

I'm going to pour the mousseinto the center so I can fill it to the top, and with an offset spatula, I'm going to smooth out the topand make it flat, and I use the sideof the acetate here to scrape my spatulato keep everything clean.

If you have a little bitof leftover, you can always put thisin a mixing bowl and eat it for breakfast.

We've got to put thisin the freezer now.

And now into our ganache.

So a ganache is a preparation with just creamand chocolate and butter.

We're going to use the ganacheto glaze the cake.

We're going to startwith the cream, and we're going to bring itto a boil.

Then we have our chocolate.

It is the same chocolateI used earlier, 66% chocolate.

I put half of the cream, just melt everything untilit's all combined and smooth.

I'm going to add the rest of thecream and still leave it warm, and here the entire chocolatewill be fully melted.

Everything is smooth and melted.

We're going to addour room-temperature butter.

That's very important.

You want the butterto slowly melt into the ganache.

Nice, shiny color, and it is readyto place our cake.

Place the cakeon a glazing rack.

It's still frozen, and we just removedthe ring mold and the acetate.

Plastic wrap into a sheet trayunderneath.

So the trick for thisis to go fast.

I'm going to pour everythingin the center.

I'm going to put a lot of itjust right here.

Then I'm goingto take my spatula, and I'm going to push everythingto the side, just right here.

We can see I missed a littlespot right here, which is okay.

I'm going to take a little bitmore of the ganache and add it to this sideright here.

Once the cake is glazed, slide it under the cake.

Lift it up a little bitand put your hand under.

I like to use all of my fingersto hold it straight, and I'm going to use the backof the spatula to scrape all the little excess that dripsdown on the bottom of the cake.

[ Laughter ] I have done this a few times.

I'm going to use the full lengthof the spatula and drop my cake right inthe 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 youhave saved everything and keep everythingpretty much clean.

I saved a little bitof the caramelized puffed rice that is coated with chocolate, and I'm going to placea few pieces on the side.

I like to put quite a biton one side, and then I'll add a few piecesof the toasted peanuts.

So I keep this quite simple.

We're going to sliceinto the cake.

A hot knife to cut through itvery, 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 fewdifferent textures right here that makes this cakereally unique.

And here's a perfect slice.

Mmm, really good.

The bottom is caramelizedand chocolaty and crunchy, and it's finished offwith a ganache that is creamyon the outside, as well.

Three different textures, very simple recipe, something you can doat home very easily.

I hope you enjoy the recipeand the book and that you findyour 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 askpeople all the time is, like, “What is the first thingyou've ever done in a kitchen?” and 99 percent of the time, people tell me that it'ssomething sweet — cake, a pie, a tart, a cookie thatyou've done with your mother, with your grandma, performed childhood memories.

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