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French Royal Cake or Le Trianon

Janedo's picture
Janedo

French Royal Cake or Le Trianon

I make several different versions of this very famous cake as it is probably my very favorite of all chocolate desserts and perfect for a fancy presentation. The only thing that may cause problems is finding the ingredients in the States. I don’t know what’s available over there, so I’ll do my best to describe how it’s done here.
For Sean’s birthday we had a very nice dinner of marinated, then BBQ’s duck breasts, a zucchini – chèvre tian and sautéed potatoes. I decorated his cake with maltezer’s and white and dark chocolate Mikado’s and 4 sparklers.

French Royal or Trianon

Gâteau Royal or Le Trianon

Marcaron base :

60 g finely ground almond
130 g sugar
15 g flour
2 egg whites
1 tsp cocoa

Preheat the oven to 220°C
In a bowl, mix 60g of the sugar, the almond, the flou rand the cocoa.
In a mixer, beat the egg whites and when they start to foam, add the rest of the sugar and let stiffen. Fold in the dry ingredients.
Prepare à springform pan (around 22 cm), line it with parchment paper and fill with the batter.
Bake ten minutes. Let cool and then remove from the pan.

Prepare a cake ring, or the spring form pan that has been cooled and washed. I use a ring that is placed directly on to the serving platter. I lined the outer edges of mine with a plastic ring so that when it came time to take the cake out, the plastic stops the cake from sicking on the side of the pan and then can be simply peeled off.
Place the baked base in the ring by cutting it to size.

Praline layer :

In France we have a brand of chocolate called Poulain 1848. They make a praline bar that is used for this cake. I don’t know if anything like that exists. You can also use milk chocolate blended with Nutella. Less « chic » but it works. Soft, pralne chocolate of any kind should do the trick. The gavottes may pose another problem. Here they are:

Gavottes

200 g pralinoise (Poulain 1848)
90 g crêpes dentelles « gavottes »
40 g ground praline

Melt the chocolate. Crush the gavottes. Mix the praline and the gavottes in to the chocolate.. Spread this mixture on to the macaron base, making sure the corners are filled and it is level.

Mousse au chocolat :

75 g sugar
1 egg + 3 yolks
200 g baker’s chocolate (good quality !)
300 ml whipping cream

Beat the egss and the sugar with 2 tbsp of hot water. This should triple in volume and become very light in color.
Melt the chocolate and then blend it in to the egg mixture.
Whip the cream until it form a « whipped cream » and fold this gently in to the chocolate mixture, making sure it is fully incorporated.
Spread this on top of the praline layer and even the top as much as possible.

Place the cake for 8-10 hours in the fridge. I placed the fridge at 1°C for the setting period.

Comments :

This recipe can be found on a great number of French cooking sites and blogs. The recipes vary somewhat. This one comes from a very nice blog called Amuses bouches
http://amusesbouche.canalblog.com/

I wanted to try the macaron base because I usually do a génoise-type base and often soaked in kirsch. I have to say, I prefer the génoise base. You can also skip the praline layer and make a chocolate brownie base. I do that sometimes and make a thicker mouse layer using only whipped cream and melted chocolate.

Trianon with sparklers

I also made this cute Batman cake for his friends at school. He was quite delighted with it. It was one of those things... 9pm, wanting desperately to go to bed, but I had to figure out how to do a Batman theme because it was Sean's special day. It worked out just fine. I was rather proud of myself!

Batman cakeBatman cake

Comments

josordoni's picture
josordoni

aha!  ignore my earlier question against the picture - I now see it all.

 

And it still looks gooey and chocolatey and so yummy!

Is the Eurotunnel open again yet? Yes!  I'm on my way....

 

Lynne

josordoni's picture
josordoni

If these are not available, I wonder if crushed brandy snaps would work?

Lynne

Janedo's picture
Janedo

Quite honestly, the texture of the gavottes is very very special. But they're so light, I could send you some! :-)

Jane 

josordoni's picture
josordoni

I'm coming over to Menton for a long weekend end of September, so I'll check out the supermarket.  I presume they will be in the biscuit section?

 

Have you any suggestions for bakery stuff I should look out for that is very good?

 

edit:  how rude of me! I meant to say that was a kind thought, thank you!

Janedo's picture
Janedo

Lynne,

Yes, there's stuff you should bring back! I'll think about it and get back to you.

Jane 

apprentice's picture
apprentice

What were the components of the Batman cake? So cute!!

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

Fortunately, looking is lo-cal, and those cakes look fabulous!


David

Janedo's picture
Janedo

Apprentice,

The Batman cake is just a basic chocolate cake recipe doubled (though a very easy recipe - don't use Duncan Hines here), then a chocolate ganache icing, and a very small portion of butter icing to make yellow. I just threw some ingredients together for the icings because I really hate making them. I can give you the cake recipe if you'd like.

David,

It's all in the portions (tiny)! :-) But thank you for the compliment. 

Jane 

apprentice's picture
apprentice

Very gracious of you! I never turn down a recipe, especially if it's the person's go-to formula. But I was more just wondering what flavour the inside was, and whether  you did a single layer or double with filling. Also if the yellow was something other than buttercream, because it almost looks like lemon curd. Couldn't feature that with chocolate, though. :)

It turned out so well. I can see why Sean loved it, and I'll bet it went over big with his friends. Sometimes those late night labours of love are really worth it, aren't they?

btw, the Trianon is gorgeous, too! Both the original one you posted a picture of and the recent version. I just have a certain lil grandson in mind for the Batman cake. That's what sparked my interest. But his birthday's not until May, and we'll see what he's "into" then.

GrapevineTXoldaccount's picture
GrapevineTXolda...

I am BEYOND impressed.  Jane, you did a magnificent job on both of these cakes.  The first one is my fav, though, and something that I will definitely try my hand at one of these days.  My mother's side of the family immigrated from France.  I have a special affinity to all things, French.  :)

SteveB's picture
SteveB

Jane, that gâteau royal looks wonderful!  I'm going to try my hand at pastries and cakes in the not too distant future and your gâteau royal looks like it's one to try.  I especially like the maltezers (malted milk balls, here in the U.S.?) garnish... they are my favorite candy!

The Batman cake is also very creative.  I didn't see the Batsignal or I would've been there in a jiffy for a taste!  :) 

SteveB

www.breadcetera.com