Sea buckthorn cake

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 5 eggs
• 5 tbsp water, cold
• 250 g flour
• 200 g sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• some lemon peel, untreated, grated
• 200 g ladyfingers
• 125 g butter
• 200 g mascarpone
• 500 ml cream
• 200 g dark chocolate coating
• 200 g currants
• Juice (sea buckthorn juice)
• 6 sheets of gelatin
• 150 ml sugar syrup (2:1 sugar:water)

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Rest time approx. 3 hours; Cooking/baking time approx. 15 minutes; Total time approx. 4 hours 15 minutes

with chocolate and currants

For the base, break the sponge fingers into crumbs, knead with the room-temperature butter to form a dough, and press evenly into the bottom of a springform pan (approx. 26 cm). For the sponge cake, separate the eggs. Beat the egg yolks with the cold water, then add the sugar and lemon zest. Beat until the mixture becomes firmer and noticeably lighter in color. Then beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold into the egg yolk and sugar mixture. Finally, fold in the salt and flour. Pour into a springform pan and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 15-20 minutes. It is important that the sponge cake goes straight into the oven and the batter does not sit around beforehand. For the chocolate cream, melt the dark chocolate, let it cool slightly, and slowly mix in the sugar syrup. Then beat 200-250 ml of cream and gradually fold in. For the sea buckthorn and mascarpone cream, let the gelatine swell with approximately 200 ml of sea buckthorn juice. While this is happening, mix the mascarpone with approximately 200-300 ml of sea buckthorn juice. Heat the gelatine to a maximum of 60°C (I do this in the microwave) and slowly mix it into the mascarpone mixture. Finally, whip the remaining cream and mix it with the mascarpone mixture. Cut the sponge cake into two slices and place one slice on the crumb base in the cake ring. I like to soak the sponge cakes with 6-7 tablespoons of sea buckthorn juice. Then I scatter the washed currants over the sponge cake, reserving a few sprigs for decoration. Next comes the chocolate cream and the second sponge cake, which I also like to soak in sea buckthorn juice. Place the sea buckthorn mixture and the last sprigs of currants on top for decoration. Then, the cake needs to chill for at least three hours, ideally under a cake cover, or overnight. You’ll have to experiment a bit with the sea buckthorn juice to find out how much you like in the cake. Most store-bought juices are diluted, including the one I used. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the fruit content, but I’ll add it later. Otherwise, as I said, just experiment with dilutions until the sea buckthorn mascarpone mixture tastes just right.