Cakes Galore!

Assembled a birthday sliced cake platter recently - I had alot of fun going every where to buy slice of cakes to try (especially since I was rather sore that I missed Ladyironchef's Obolo outing) . This isn't the first time I'm doing this platter because I did this for my birthday too trying cakes from Obolo (and the awesome durian puffs from Puteri Mas opposite), Canale, Cedele, and the Big O. I posted a picture of my platter (but no individual reviews) previously. This time round though, I bought the cakes from Hilton Checkers Deli, Big O, Rive Gauche, Canale and Bakerzin.

First up... the 4 SUPERB cakes from Hilton. They are famous for their cheesecakes but my family used to order the American Cheesecake for birthdays ALOT so we didn't eat any this time round. Reading my all time favourite cake blog - Fen's - I realise that the Hazelnut Royaltine sounds like the type of cake I wanna try - I only intended to buy this particular cake but i ended up buying another 3 slices because they were sooooo visually appealing! And they ALL tasted as good as they look, which is of cos the most important.

Hazelnut Royaltine
Hazelnut praline, Chocolate sponge, Hazelnut Mousse

This is my favourite cake of all the cakes featured in this post simply because the crunchy praline layer was really thick! Usually when i eat other praline cakes (from the Patissier or chocoabloc) I'm always eating the thin flaky biscuit layer at the bottom first - but there is so much of the crispy layer in this! I really liked it -most of the middle section was this Ferroro Rocher crispy biscuit layer. It is not very dense, and the rest of the cake was filled with hazelnut mousse.

L' Opera

Expresso Coffee, Coffee butter, Myer Rum, Jaconde sponge, Chocolate Ganache, Ground almond

Unlike Tiramisu, this cake is really DENSE and the coffee aroma is really quite strong. This cake is really good if you like dense coffee-chocolate. There was hardly any sponge in this - which is good for dense cake lovers like me.

Snickers

Jivara milk chocolate, Peanut Caramel, Biscuit jaconde, Dark chocolate glaze, Peanut Crisp

This cake was calling out to me cos I loveeee Snickers!! Peanut - caramel - chocolate..beat that! And what is great about this cake is that the bottom layer is the peanut crisp - I mean, I would rather pay 1/3 of the price and eat the real Snickers candy bar but this crisp layer made all the difference to eating this Snickers cake. The topping of caramel popcorn made it all the more fun to eat the cake too =)

It slipped my mind that Snickers was on the melamine radar some time ago but oh well. Such a late after thought.

St Marc

Butter Cream, Choc ganache, Dacquaise sponge, Hazelnut

You will like this cake if you like butter and hazelnuts because this cake was really creamy. The topmost layer was the thickest - full of butter cream followed by sponge then another layer of hazelnut cream. What breaks the monotony of all the milky goodness is the bottom dense dark chocolate ganache layer. Quite a creamy cake - as compared to the other 3 cakes from Hilton which were really dense.

The next 2 cakes are from Big O

Indecent obsession

Chocolate Hazelnut cake

I tried this during my previous birthday cake platter and liked it enough to buy it again. But this time around I didn't get to eat these 2 slices of cakes from Big O (sigh) but from the last time I ate it, I conclude that you'd like this cake if you like chocolate fudge cakes (like those from Awfully chocolate). But this cake is more interesting to eat because again there's the crispy hazelnut wafer layer, which goes really well with the fudge and sponge. A sufficiently moist chocolate cake as well, and a good balance between chocolate and hazelnut - not too heavy going and dense.

Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake

This was the lonesome (only) cheesecake which I didn't get to try!!!! oh well another time then. The previous birthday platter I tried the Spike D - this chocolate covered durian puree cake that is semicircular in shape. That was awesome!

The next cake is from River Gauche

Guanaja

Bitter sweet chocolate mousse and Ganache with 2 layers of chocolate sponge

comes with a bottom layer of Crispy biscuit

I tried this before a long time back during Yvonne's birthday (Jason bought it for the birthday) and Jason and I were raving after that about how good it was, I really couldnt stop at one slice. But having tried it now again..(and having tried all these other chocolate hazelnut praline cakes =P) I think the chocolate sponge layer was a little to thick for me - I would prefer more mousse and a more dense cake. Again, the crispy biscuit was the clincher but its too thin!

The next 3 cakes are from Bakerzin at Paragon

Sweet Pleasure

Layers of hazelnut praline dacquoise, Jivara milk chocolate ganache with fleur de sel, topped with chocolate mousse.

This cake is gorgeous -okay it looks WAY better in the brochures - and its not only the photography okay, you scrutinize it properly and you'd realise they decorate it much better in their catalogs - the hazelnut praline is not supposed to be a layer like that but supposed to be like little globules of praline creme. Okay im a sucker for aesthetics, but even taste wise I don't think it impresses much. The milk chocolate was slightly sour - the same taste as Cadbury chocolate. It got difficult to eat as well because I dismantled the whole cake when i sank my fork in. This cake had plenty of hazelnut cream and crisp but the sour chocolate just didn't cut it.

Chocolate Amer

Flourless chocolate sponge layered with bitter chocolate mousse

oops i forgot to remove the plastic wrapper but This is THE cake that earned Bakerzin a spot in the top 50 cakes but again I'm not very impressed by the quality of chocolate used. For someone who likes a balance between sponge and mousse, the balance is good here. But then again, I am not really a fan of flourless chocolate cakes too, I found the flourless chocolate cake at Laurent's average only, compared to his awesome chocolate tart and souffle.

Lavande
Lavender infused dark chocolate mousse cake

This is what saves Bakerzin for me because this cake was excellent. I forgot how aromatic Lavender can be and it added a different dimension to chocolate cake - i got really sick of dark dense chocolate-hazelnut-cream after a while (yes i tried all these cakes in one sitting because otherwise my family will finish everything!!). Hardly much sponge in this cake as well, alot of dark chocolate cream.

The next 3 cakes are from Canale at Paragon

Chocolate Nutella Pie

Dark chocolate tart + Nutella

Dark Chocolate cream

This is a new offering from Canale but it doesn't taste as good as it looks (or sounds). I could hardly taste any Nutella in any layer. The best chocolate tart is still from Laurent's. This dark chocolate layer was really HARD! And the pastry layer at the bottom was not the flaky type (like the one from laurents) but more of the buttery biscuit type.

Caraibe

Dark Chocolate cream 66%, Dark Chocolate cake 66%

Hazelnut nougatine, almond chocolate glaze

My all time favourite cake from Canale. Dense, dense, nutty, nutty - there are whole hazelnuts in the thickkkkk layer of dark chocolate cream! It is like a whole chocolate hazelnut bar (the chocolate is very very dense) with a minimal layer of sponge at the top. Awesome!

Le Royale

64% dark chocolate mousse, Chocolate genoise with rum

Almond succes, Hazelnut feullitine

This cake has a better balance of mousse, sponge and the crispy hazelnut layer. The cake that earned Canale a spot in the top 50 cakes.

Overall, I really enjoyed the Hilton cakes the most and im glad i tried them as my family has been ordering their American cheesecakes all these years without realising the other goodies they have to offer. Even better now that Christmas is coming, we know where to get our logcakes and sugar fix from =)