Bouchon Bakery: Palet d’Or

The gold disk or palet d’or is a rich chocolate dessert made up of alternating layers of cake and chocolate cream, covered in a chocolate glaze. So yes, A LOT of chocolate. Traditionally a few flecks of gold leaf are placed on top, hence the d’or part of the name. It was the first recipe out of the Bouchon Bakery cookbook where I felt like the challenge was more in the execution and presentation rather than the technique.

In trying to perfect my photos of the cake the inside actually started softening and melting but there are 5 layers total.

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Late at night, leveling off the chocolate cream layer so that the cake can freeze overnight. This project is written to be completed in two days but the cake can be frozen as well as the assembled cake (without the glaze) so really you could extend the project over a week and it won’t feel as time consuming.

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The frozen cake ready for a glossy coating. The glaze is interesting because it contains leaf gelatin to help it set.

If you have an iPhone, you can check out my Vine video of the chocolate glazing!

One slice or two?

The components (cake, cream, glaze) of this cake are fantastic but because of the way I assembled everything, the proportions were a little off and the cake was too rich for me. I’ve described them in my notes below.

Equipment: this recipe calls for an 8 x 1-3/8″ cake ring for assembly.

• I had an 8″ tart ring which is a lot shorter so I used acetate to build the height. I first placed the tart ring on a sheet pan with a cardboard and parchment round underneath for a base.
• I cut an acetate strip to 1-3/8″ H and placed it inside the ring, secured with tape.

Chocolate Cake

• This is baked in a half sheet pan and is only about 1/4″ thick when its baked. To get the rounds, the book says to use a cutter but I used the bottom of a springform pan, traced it and used kitchen scissors to cut the cake and the parchment paper. Keeping the parchment with it helps with transport .Then I peeled the paper off once it was in the cake ring.
• My take: I’d like the cake to be thicker, maybe 1/2″ or add another layer so there is more cake.

Chocolate Cream

• When assembling the order is as follows: cake, cream, cake, cream.
• For the top layer of cream, it is leveled and frozen. The book says check after a few hours of freezing to see if the cream sank, in which case then add more of the cream (you will have extra) to make it flat again and re-freeze that. This note makes me really appreciate the attention to detail in the book. The only problem with doing this is this cream layer got really thick after leveling it off the second time and overpowered the cake. I think having the thicker or additional cake layers would help with that.

Chocolate Glaze

• As I mentioned above the glaze has gelatin in it which is new for me. It got the glaze to a nice syrupy consistency. I waited about 10 minutes before I actually glazed the cake so it was too thick. I’d add it soon after you take it off the stove so it’s a thinner coating.
• Don’t take out the cake from the freezer until you are ready to glaze that way the cream is nice and cold when it’s glazed.

If you can find gold leaf, I’d add it because that extra touch would make the cake look really beautiful especially after all the work put into the cake. I’ve seen it at Sur la Table.

Week 24 of the Bouchon Bakery Book Project

Read the Project recap on the Palet d’Or

Bake with us!