Do You Know the Heel Holland Bakt Classics
Preparation is everything, people. We’re already warming up for Heel Holland Bakt and refreshing our patisserie knowledge. What exactly is Moskovisch gebak again? How do you make light sponge cake? What’s the pitfall of a stirred batter? And Saint-Honoré or a Charlotte—what are they all about?
Gateau Saint-Honoré
Heel Holland Bakt classic. A puff pastry base topped with cream puffs filled with pastry cream. The cream puffs are coated with sugar syrup so they shine beautifully. Decorate with fruit or extra caramel.
Pitfall: the cream puffs. On top of that, the cake needs to be eaten quickly, because the cream puffs soon become soggy.
Charlotte
An Instagram-perfect little cake, with a border of ladyfingers and a bavarois filling. Usually made with strawberries. A pretty ribbon goes around the ladyfingers.
Pitfall: the ladyfingers easily topple over, and the bavarois needs some time to set nicely.
Bavarois
A pudding-like filling for cakes and also an excellent dessert. Made with whipped cream, fruit, sugar and gelatin.
Pitfall: letting bavarois set is always a stressful job with television cameras around. Too much gelatin and the bavarois bounces off the pastry plate.
Sponge cake
An ultra-light, cake-like base. Made with eggs, whipped until very airy, flour, sugar and a little cornstarch. Take it up a notch: joconde batter, with melted butter and almond flour.
Pitfall: taking it out of the oven at exactly the right moment is difficult; a good sponge cake is soft and airy but not dry.
Choux pastry
Light cream puffs are made from a so-called stirred or cooked dough. Yes, you make this batter on the stovetop! The butter melts in water or milk (or a mix of the two), flour is added and cooked, and then the eggs have to be stirred in one by one. Warm it in the piping bag, pipe little blobs, put them in a hot oven and then pray that it all works out.
Pitfall: if the cream puffs don’t rise in the oven, you’ve baked shuffleboard discs—there’s no saving them. Opening the oven halfway through guarantees collapse.
Italian meringue
Meringue, such as meringue, can be made by whipping egg whites with a mountain of sugar. But it wouldn’t be Heel Holland Bakt if most contestants didn’t prefer a more complicated method: Italian meringue. The egg whites are whipped with some powdered sugar, after which warm sugar syrup (sugar and water heated together) is added while whisking.
Pitfall: making sugar syrup is always a laugh, because it takes a while to reach the right temperature, but if you turn around for a moment, it has changed color. Besides, everything in the kitchen stays sticky for weeks if you don’t work very neatly and cleanly.
Moskovisch gebak
Light cake, comparable to sponge cake. Butter is used in Moskovisch gebak, but it is worked into the batter in small pieces. Typically Moskovisch: an airy Christmas bundt cake.
Pitfall: the pieces are cut through the flour with knives. They must not be too large, or they will all sink to the bottom, but not too small either, because then they will melt too quickly. Good luck.
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