Cookaholics Bulletin Board

So the Theobromas Bash is rolling around again, and this year I have to do all of the baking in the next five days, instead of spread out over a month or more. But we bought tartlette shells from Albert Uster, so I don't have to make the 500 or so I did last year.(at one point I thought I had made 1,200 shells, but that has to be wrong.)
Coming today:
chocolate mousse, which gets frozen in mini pyramids.
Brownies
Chocolate cheesecake
Eclair shells
Chocolate pastry cream
Ganache
Caramel
Chocolate-ginger scones.
I want to do some kind of cake-I lobe the Zebra cake we did at the CIA, where you make a flexible sponge, spread it with whipped cream and roll it up, so when you slice it it's in vertical stripes. But I can't think of a good way to miniaturize it. Maybe I will do it in stacks.

Wow, that is ambitious Becky...of course you always pull it off. Lucky attendees.
Ilene

What about using a Zebra-striped Joconde with a mousse filling?

Amy

Becky,

This isn't nearly the chocolate extravaganza you're preparing, but I thought you'd appreciate this. At a recent mini-conference at Google, the organizer (Carol) asked attendees to all bring chocolate from their home countries. The result was over 8 kilos of chocolate. Marty, one of the most talented and widely loved network hackers in the world lies across them here:



As for the zebra-stripe thingies, I personally wouldn't get into any kind of hand-layering with only 5 days. How about some marble cake instead? If you swirl in the chocolate using tight, angular motions, you can get a bit of a zig-zag.

Josh,

Joconde isn't hand-layered. It's very straight-forward to make.

I was thinking something along the following, which wouldn't be difficult.



Amy

I think I'll just go with a devil's food layer cake, as it requires very little thinking.
I love having chocolate from different places to compare.

I can't scroll within the message box with my iPad, so sometimes things end up out of order. You guys can figure it out.

Have now made the devil's food layers,
Three types of cookies
Close to 200 2"eclair shells
Chocolate buttercream
The short dough to get baked in little squares as bases for the 240 or so pyramids of mousse, which will get sprayed with chocolate tomorrow
Brownies
Black and white cashew brownies
Peanut butter filling for mini shells
A sheet of cinnamon marshmallow. It goes in a graham cracker shell, surrounded with milk chocolate ganache. I'm brûléeing the tops of the marshmallows so you get that S'more taste.
Still to finish:
Raspberry Bavarian filling for chocolate shells
tea-infused pots de creme in phyllo shells (bought the shells)
Filling shells
Orange curd
Making three types of hot cocoa syrup to heat as needed
Making the batter for molten lava cakes to be baked ala minute
And I have undoubtedly forgotten something. Luckily, the party isn't until Friday.
Baking the short dough
Assembling the layer cake
Filling and glazing the eclairs

And I'm getting tired just getting ready for Cary's B-day party. (Par-baking the last batch of Garlic Knots today and digging out the company dishes and silver.)

I bow down to your cacao-inspired energy!

Becky, do you have photos of this awesomeness? Amazing.

Wow! I want some!