If anyone has not heard of this cake you must google it!!!  It looks amazing.  I would like to make this for my sister-in-laws birthday in March and adapt it using Rose’s recipes.  The coffee syrup, ganache and buttercream will be easily adapted, but I am not sure about the cake part.  A true Opera Cake use almond sponge layers.  Any ideas on which cake I should use?  I also want to make it round instead of rectangular and use Rose’s shiny glaze on it.

I had started to make this for this past Thanksgiving, but simply ran out of time.  The cake part is, I recall, Joconde.  A round one will be a bit more difficult if you are trying to achieve the full effect; the sides are usually trimmed to reveal the interior layers.

Wow!  I just looked them up, and they are impressive looking!

I realize I won’t get the same effect if it is a round cake and iced.  I just wanted to acheive similar layers to the cake.

Can’t wait to see your version!

Rose has an almond biscuit roulade (Cake Bible) that is very nearly the same thing as joconde, except for method- it doesn’t beat the ground nuts with the eggs but rather folds them in with the flour.  Ingredients are the same, though.  I’ve made the almond roulade into a mutli-layered cake (with the caramel silk meringue) and it was very, very good.  The cake is a little on the sweet side for a Rose cake, so you might skip syruping, or, if making a coffee syrup, go easy on the sugar. 

If you don’t mind a little more variation from the standard (adding chocolate to the almond cake), either the chocolate cloud roulade or the chocolate souffle roulade are some of my favorite cakes when made with the optional grounds almonds, I make them several times a year.  They are less sweet than the biscuit.

I have two books with Opera cakes, the Art of the Cake, by Healy/Bugat, and Bo Friberg’s Professional Pastry Chef.  If you would like me to look up anything, just ask .

Thanks so much Julie.  I took a look at the chocolate cloud roulade and the chocolate souffle roulade and they will definitely fit the bill.  I don’t know which one to choose.  I know you like both, but if you had to choose, which one would you choose to do an opera cake.  I will definitely use the optional ground almonds. 

I guess it would be easier to cut the cakes in half and layer instead of cutting out rounds for a round cake.

Hmmm, you could cut the sheet cakes in half but then a square cake is so hard to frost (well, for me, anyway).

Between the cloud or souffle roulade, one has the flavor of a chocolate bar and the other, of cocoa plus butter.  I guess my choice, to pair with almonds and coffee, might be the cocoa, but really either one would be fine. 

Looking forward to seeing it!

I’m not too fond of icing square cakes either.  Too much work.  I think that I am going to put some type of chocolate decoration or band around the cake so I don’t have to make the icing look too perfect.