sadaharu aoki is undoubtedly one of the world's most recognized pastry chefs. when i visit tokyo next year, not only am i going for pierre herme and laduree but i'm gonna visit sadaharu aoki (and hidemi sugino) as well. so far, i've not been able to find any of his recipes (not even in books) therefore i was elated and somewhat surprised to come across this recipe for one of his best sellers, the valencia entremet. orange chocolate, as you know, is my favorite dessert combination and probably one of the widely used as well when it comes to entremets, so i couldn't wait to try it out!

components from top : light orange mousse, almond cocoa sponge, milk choc mousse, hazelnut praline feuilletine & hazelnut dacquoise.

of coz, my rendition is nothing compared to that of the pastry chef's. i thought i could slice the cake better when its frozen, turned out that i was wrong. the feuilletine & dacquoise layer at the bottom was really hard and i couldn't make a clean cut. i ended up with jagged edges and bits of nuts flying here and there :( nevertheless this is a good cake though i would say its more chocolate than orange compared to this one that i made for my mom's birthday. i used grand marnier instead of cognac which was originally stated for the orange mousse and i find it too overpowering that i couldn't really taste any orange at all. i guess this is one time where the substitution didn't work out well so its better to stick to the recipe in future. one thing for sure, making entremets is really easy now! having made it so many times, i feel that the steps and components are pretty predictable and i could breeze through each component without any difficulty. if you approach it step-by-step, its really quite simple!