Have you ever been visited by a desire in a pastry shop to buy that cake, and this one, and that one over there? So I want to try everything! And there is one to choose. But why deny yourself? This article is for those who want to treat themselves to different tastes. Below you will find the Quartet cake recipes.
As the name suggests, 4 different tastes were combined in this dessert. Thus, you can pamper yourself and please your loved ones not with one, but immediately with four cakes. True, they will be small. Such a culinary technique is very practical. After all, people with different preferences gather at the table. If there is one cake, there is a risk that one of the guests will not like it. And with Quarters, everyone can cut off a slice for themselves from the segment they like.
The principle of assembly of the cake
If you look at the photos, it becomes clear why the dessert is so called. A sweet cake really consists of segments of four different cakes. How to bake it? Do we really have to bake four products, then cut them into pieces and thus assemble? You can do the same. By the way, many private entrepreneurs working at home offer to buy such a Quartet cake. In Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, and other cities of Russia, such desserts are offered. But if we want to bake a cake ourselves, then we need to think about how to contrive, so that the four tastes are combined in one pie. That is, the circle should be even. And for this quarter should be the same size and preferably the same height. That is, no matter what cakes we make, bake cakes for them you need in one form. Most likely, you already guessed about further actions. Cut each cake into four parts and smear with the appropriate cream.
Cake Requirements
The product consists of parts that are different in taste and appearance. Nevertheless, they should be in harmony with each other, creating the appearance of one whole. If such a comparison is appropriate, the Quartet cake is similar to the Quatrostadzione pizza. In Italian, it means "four seasons." Different fillings are laid out in it in a circle.
Culinary experts advise against combining sponge cakes with puff pastries. They will look dissonance. It is better to opt for biscuits. Using the same shape, it is easy to achieve equal diameter and height of the cakes. In addition, biscuits can be easily diversified by adding cocoa, poppy seeds, nuts and other components. Necessarily alternate dark (with cocoa), brown (with honey), yellow (lemon) and white cakes. One of the quarters should be made with large inserts - whole nuts, marshmallows, meringues. It looks beautiful if there is jam impregnation on a section of a segment.
Top Decoration
Should there be universality in the design of quarters of cakes? The photos show that in this respect you can just give free rein to your imagination. After all, the cake is not in vain called Quarters. Guests should have the impression that the segments are taken from different culinary products. But to make the cake look more elegant and amuse not only the stomach of eaters, but also their aesthetic feeling, it is better to adhere to some uniformity in the decor. For example, you decide to coat the top of one piece with chocolate. Garnish the other three quarters with colored mastic and a white ganache. Have you decided to sprinkle nut crumbs on top? Then for the remaining quarters almond petals, coconut flakes and grated chocolate are suitable. The same applies to the design of the rear wall of the segment.
Quartet cakes. Compositions
What is the best way to put together tastes? It is preferable to make only one quarter very sweet. Suitable "Honey", "Snickers" with nougat. The other quarter can be chocolate. Here, culinary experts recommend choosing “One, Two, Three Cake”, “Prague” or “Black Forest”. The third quarter may contain “airy” elements: marshmallows, marshmallows, meringues, meringues. Here, by the way, one can recall the recipe for the Kievsky cake. And finally, the fourth should be dedicated to those who love berries and tender mousse. And here before us are unlimited possibilities. If you want, use fresh berries and fruits; if you want, use compote. You can enter into the composition of this segment a gentle cottage cheese or mascarpone. The main thing in the cake is to present as wide an assortment of such desserts as possible. And you can do otherwise. Compose Napoleon, Spartak, Zebra and a similar striped cake.
Cake "Quarters" for the New Year
Usually such complex culinary masterpieces create for great holidays. We have New Year on our nose . Let’s make a treat for this holiday, uniting people of all religions. What ideas can be here? It would be nice if all the quarters are united by the “New Year theme”. It can be “Frosty cherry” in a snow-white sour cream with coconut flakes, “Chocolate pie one, two, three”, “Golden key” with caramel and honey, as well as the most delicate “Citrus Paradise” with slices of tangerines with fruit jelly. But the compositions of the New Year's quarters of cakes can be changed to your taste. Let's start cooking with the simplest product, namely, “One, Two, Three.”
Pour 235 g of wheat flour, 65 g of cocoa, 7 g of soda, a pinch of salt and 300 g of sugar into a large bowl. Mix. Add two eggs, 260 ml of warmed milk, two teaspoons of vanilla extract and 60 grams of olive and soft butter. Beat with a mixer until smooth and uniform. Pour a tablespoon of wine or apple cider vinegar. Whip again. Bake chocolate cake. Cut it into quarters. Making chocolate cream. We smear the quarters. We cover the top of the product with ganache and decorate it with “snowflakes” from marshmallows.
Marshmallow Cake
Mix 2 eggs, 100 g of sugar, 125 g of sour cream, 50 g of very soft margarine, a glass of flour and half a bag of baking powder. Beat with a mixer. Pour the biscuit batter into the mold and bake the cake. As in the previous case, we cut it into 4 parts. Impregnated with drinking yogurt. Cream for this segment of the Quartet cake is proposed to be made simple. Just mix boiled condensed milk with soft butter. Putting a quarter together. On the lower cake smear cream. We put marshmallows cut into slices on it, and chopped fruits of your choice on top. Cover with a second cake. Repeat the sequence of actions. We decorate the top of the product with a caramel-colored mastic coating with boiled condensed milk frills. We put halves of marshmallows on the side of the segment.
Mousse cake
For this segment of the Quarter cake, we rub 3 yolks with 1/3 cup sugar and a pinch of vanillin. Add a pound of softened butter. Beat the mass to a magnificent state. In a half glass of flour, add a little baking powder for the dough. We introduce this mixture into a yolk-oil base. Bake the cake at 200 degrees for about a quarter of an hour. We make a compote. To do this, soak 6 g of edible gelatin in 36 g of cold water. Two hundred grams of strawberries (or other berries; you can use canned peach in syrup), cut into small cubes, add 40 g of sugar and put on fire. When syrup is formed, remove from the stove and introduce the swollen gelatin. Compote is poured into the mold in which the cake is baked (first you need to wrap it with cling film) and remove it in the cold. For mousse, we dilute 10 g of gelatin with half a glass of milk. Add 200 grams of condensed milk. Beat, pour into the mold and also put in the freezer.
Fruit Paradise
In winter, only citrus fruits are available to us in our latitudes. Therefore, for this cake we will use tangerines. Bake the usual white biscuit cake. Cut into four parts. We soak them with tangerine liqueur (yogurt with citrus flavor is also suitable). Leave a few tablespoons of alcohol to soak 20 g of gelatin. We mix four hundred grams of cottage cheese mashed to smoothness with citrus yogurt, a bag of vanillin and three tablespoons of powdered sugar. Lightly heat the swollen gelatin. First we mix it with a small amount of curd cream, then add to the bulk. While it freezes, whip a glass of fat cream. Three quarters of this magnificent mass is mixed in a curd cream. Add the tangerine wedges. We spread the cakes with cream. Garnish with the remaining whipped cream and tangerine slices. On a beautiful dish we put together the quarters of the cakes.