La Fraise
 
A homemade version of Paris’s Ladurée Patisserie’s La Fraise entremet cake, bursting with strawberry flavour! Be sure to read the notes at the end before attempting this recipe!
Ingredients
For the coconut sponge:
  • 20g ground almonds
  • 20g unsweetened, shredded coconut
  • 20g flour
  • 40c icing sugar
  • 25g + 75g egg whites
  • 25g sugar
For the strawberry compote:
  • 125g puréed strawberries
  • 50g finely diced strawberries
  • 60g sugar
  • 5g pectin
  • 10g lemon juice
For the strawberry crème mousseline:
  • 21g gelatin
  • 75g + 25g water
  • 525g puréed strawberries
  • 450g half and half (or 225g cream and 225g milk)
  • 180g egg yolks
  • 40g + 115g sugar
  • 8g lemon juice
  • 75g cornstarch
  • 265g egg whites
For the red dacquoise crumbs:
  • 20g flour
  • 60g ground almonds
  • 70g icing sugar
  • 30g sugar
  • 90g egg whites
  • Red food colouring (not Wilton gel colours, which turn brown when baked)
To decorate:
  • 35g egg whites
  • 200g icing sugar
  • Green gum paste (gum paste with green food colouring kneaded in)
Method
Prepare the coconut sponge:
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F).
  2. In a small bowl, mix together the almonds, coconut, flour, icing sugar, and 25g of the egg whites until combined.
  3. In a large bowl, stir together the 75g of egg whites with the 25g of sugar. Whip until stiff peaks form in a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. If you wish, you could also whisk by hand or with a hand mixer but it will take longer.
  4. Fold the coconut mixture into the egg whites until smooth, trying to deflate the egg whites as little as possible, and then spread evenly onto a parchment paper lined tray (you’re looking for a thickness of about 7.5mm or ⅓ of an inch).
  5. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until lightly golden.
  6. Cut into 4cm (~1.5 inch) squares and store at room temperature in an air-tight container until ready to assemble.
Prepare the strawberry compote:
  1. Line a pan with parchment paper in preparation (I used an 8x8 square pan, although it doesn’t particularly matter).
  2. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar and the pectin.
  3. Meanwhile, bring the puréed strawberries with the diced strawberries in a small saucepan to a simmer over medium heat.
  4. Stir the sugar-pectin mixture, as well as the lemon juice, into the strawberries.
  5. Bring to a rapid boil and boil for four minutes, stirring regularly.
  6. Spread evenly onto the parchment paper lined pan (you’re looking for a thickness of about 7.5mm or ⅓ of an inch) and freeze.
  7. Once frozen, cut into 4cm (~1.5 inch) squares and store in the freezer until ready to assemble.
Prepare the strawberry crème mousseline:
  1. In a small bowl, mix together the gelatin and the 75g of water.
  2. Then, bring the puréed strawberries and half and half to a boil in a medium sized pot.
  3. Meanwhile, whisk to combine the egg yolks, 40g of sugar, lemon juice, and cornstarch in a large bowl.
  4. Slowly whisk in the hot cream and strawberry mixture into the eggs.
  5. Transfer back to the pot and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until thickened.
  6. Stir in the gelatin and set aside in the fridge to cool for at least an hour.
  7. Once chilled, whip the egg whites in a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment to soft peaks.
  8. Meanwhile, in a new small pot, combine the 115g of sugar with the 25g of water. Heat over medium heat until the sugar-water mixture reaches 121°C (250°F).
  9. Slowly pour the liquid sugar into the egg whites, continuing to whip on a low speed until the egg whites reach stiff peaks. If you wish, you can pour in a little bit of sugar, whisk on high speed, and repeat until you use all of the sugar instead of pouring the sugar in a steady stream.
  10. Whisk the cooled strawberry mixture to remove clumps and then fold into the egg whites until smooth.
  11. Transfer to a pastry bag with a large tip (shape doesn’t matter).
Assemble the pastry rings (only if you don’t have metal paisley pastry rings):
  1. If you have 5cm (2 inch) wide acetate strips, you’re ready for the next step. Otherwise, cut transparencies/overhead projector sheets into strips that are 5cm (2 inches) wide. You’ll need 6 strips.
  2. Curl the strips to get a water drop shape, cutting as necessary and attaching with tape. You’ll be assembling the pastries from their side and then turning them so that they rest on one of the straight edges of the water drop.
Assemble the pastries:
  1. Place the 6 plastic water drop pastry rings on a parchment paper lined baking sheet that fits in your freezer.
  2. Pipe the strawberry mousseline ¼ of the way up the pastry rings.
  3. Place a square of frozen strawberry compote in each ring (in the large bottom part of the water drop), add a bit more mousseline, place a square of coconut sponge on top, add some more mousseline, and top with a final square of strawberry compote.
  4. Cover completely with mousseline and use an offset spatula to ensure that the top is flat.
  5. Freeze until firm.
Prepare the red dacquoise crumbs:
  1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F).
  2. Sieve together the flour, ground almonds, and icing sugar into a large bowl.
  3. Combine the egg whites with the sugar in another bowl and whip to medium peaks with a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Add the red food colouring, as needed, and whip until combined.
  4. Fold the dry ingredients into the meringue, spread onto a tray lined with parchment paper, and bake for 11-14 minutes. It doesn’t matter much if you under or over bake the cake.
  5. Once cooled, break up into chunks, place back onto the parchment paper, and bake for about 30 minutes at 90°C (200°F), or until quite hard but not burnt. Check often to ensure that the cake does not burn or turn brown.
  6. Cool and then grind into fine crumbs with a food processor.
  7. Sieve into a shallow container to prepare for rolling the pastries in the crumbs.
Assemble the pastries:
  1. Peel away the plastic pastry ring or lift up the metal pastry ring (you may need to heat it up with a flame), and then quickly pass a flame over the mousseline so that the crumbs will stick to it.
  2. Roll the pastries in the cake crumbs and set aside.
  3. Then, whip the egg whites until frothy and add the icing sugar. Continue whisking until thickened and transfer to a piping bag with a small, round piping tip.
  4. Pipe the cream onto the strawberry to form seeds.
  5. For the stem, cut out 5-point stars from the gum paste and poke a hole in the middle of each with a straw. Make a stem out of gum paste and push it through the hole. Create a small hole in the strawberry-shaped pastry with a knife and insert the stem.
Notes
The recipe above details exactly how I made these. However, as I wrote in the post, they didn't turn out so well appearance-wise. Nevertheless, they tasted great. Thus, I suggest you skip the crumbs, the purely decorative elements (stem and seeds), and the shape. They take a long time to make and they doesn't come out very nicely because of the amount of moisture in the mousseline recipe. Apparently, the white cream that I wrote about in the post but didn't use is quite important. There are other differences between this version and the bakery's. For instance, it's possible that Ladurée doesn't use toasted crumbs but a thin layer of cake instead. It's hard to tell. Also, the stem probably needs to dry separately from the rest of the cake to harden properly. I'm not particularly sure because I haven't worked with gum paste before. I have a feeling though that it never dried hard on my version because I set it immediately onto the very moist cake.

Instead of pursuing the strawberry shape and design (at least with this recipe), I suggest layering the coconut sponge, strawberry compote, and the mousseline in a regular round or square pastry ring, freezing completely, and then coating with a chocolate mirror glaze (the recipe from the Ambroisie cake I made earlier works nicely). You won't get the strawberry shape, but it will taste just as good with far fewer problems. I'm unable to nail down Ladurée's recipe just yet...
Recipe by IronWhisk at http://www.ironwhisk.com/2014/07/la-fraise/