These are the individual wedding cakes that Oriol Balaguer did for Oriol Castro's wedding. Biscuit layered with white chocolate mousse, covered in white chocolate mousse, spraygunned with dark chocolate, garnished with a dark chocolate spoon, topped with a quenelle of dark chocolate mousse, and plated with apricot puree that was applied in the shape of a spoon. For those of you who are not pastry nerds, Oriol Balaguer is one of the top pastry chefs in the world. Thanks to Ted for the heads-up on his new website - mentioned on eGullet. My only complaint about the new site is that it doesn't do him justice - OB is a major hottie. He's based in Barcelona and just opened a shop in Tokyo - the first by a Spanish pastry chef in Japan - a big deal since that's long been the domain of Zee French. OB also did a big wedding presentation piece that I mentioned here before - a meter-high and meter-wide chocolate sculpture that looked like the weathered beams that fence the front of El Bulli - holding one large version of the little cakes. But by the time I got to that - much later in the inebriated evening - it had already been decimated. But earlier in the afternoon, we plated these beauties up - in the basement of the castle where the wedding was held in Taragonna, Spain. And we tried to keep them beautiful - because delicate and delicious as they were, they were sons-of-bitches to plate up. Every single slightest touch showed up - with the dark over the light cream. We finally figured out that the best way was to take two small spatulas, carefully lift, then position, then plate. But with so little surface space - every inch was taken up by plates - sometimes we had to carry a little cake almost across the room. It was like some kind of nerve-wracking carnival game. And of course, just as I was in the middle of this precarious operation, who should come down and check out the scene? Oriol Balaguer himself. All I could think was "Please don't fall you fucking little cake!" And then he comes closer to watch me over my shoulder as I plate it. And then all I could think was "Please don't fall you fucking little cake!" Original thoughts were lost on me at that moment. But victory was had and all was well. OB adjusted the apricot puree - which we then had to madly dash and correct on all 240 plates. There were a few cake casualties - mostly from transport in the boxes - they were done at his place and brought down finished - cracked spoons, fallen quenelles, etc. And in the basement of the castle, we descended on those like starving savages - chocolate-mousse-quenelle-eating savages.
