This sliced entremet looks impressive, but don’t be put off by how difficult it looks.

I used blackberries in both the creme au beurre and ganache so that blackberry is the underlying flavour in this dessert, it’s quite subtle and I didn’t want it to be overpowered by the chocolate or the sweetness of the buttercream. This is some seriously good chocolate, I had to really resist the urge to just eat it by the handful. I’ve used two of their chocolates in this opera, 66% semisweet cacao wafers and 55% Akoma Semisweet chocolate chips. In my head I had an image of the finished dessert and it turned out just like I imagined, the striking purple colour of the berries shone through in the creme au beurre and the contrast against the dark chocolate ganache and pale joconde sponge helped to create a stunning cake.Īnother reason for creating this opera is due to the generous box of chocolate I received from Guittard, they sent me a whole host of chocolates from their range.

The opera is one of my favourite patisserie, I’ve made it a lot of times on the blog and when this season’s blackberries were early I knew I wanted to use them in a layered gateau like this.

Easiest opera cake recipe