
The cake featured here is a variation of a recipe from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet. The cake here is surrounded with cocoa meringue rods instead of a wall of chocolate.

I’d intended to make the chocolate wall, but it turned into a chocolatey mess with some bits of wall on the cake and other bits stuck on a plastic sheet. I improvised and covered the sides with chocolate shavings and cocoa meringue rods, which I’d made the night before. The result is a rather impressive looking cake. It’s not as elegant as the chocolate wall version, but I love the presentation here.

The cake is made up of 2 layers of chocolate genoise sandwiched with a light mascarpone cream and hidden strawberries. I just adore the look of the cut strawberries when the cake is sliced at just the right place.