This is my knock-off Cooking Tree tutorial for my koi pond mousse cake I poured way too many hours of my life into this so i hope you enjoy :,) Starting with the nerikiri, you’ll need sweet white bean paste, sweet rice flour, and a little bit of water Nerikiri is a Japanese confectionery that I use to make the koi and other decorations To the rice flour, add a tablespoon of water at a time, mixing until you reach a melty-ice cream consistency (for lack of a better descriptive phrase) In total I used around 2 tablespoons of water In a saucepan, add your sweet white bean paste and rice flour mixture Mix until well combined, to form a thick paste Transfer to a stovetop at low heat, kneading constantly with a spatula until no longer sticky and it forms a soft dough At this point the dough should still be warm Knead until smooth, cover it in plastic wrap, and let rest until completely cool And this is the finished nerikiri dough Section it off into individual portions of to be coloured Make sure to cover the pieces you're not using with plastic wrap to keep them from dying out I'm using gel colouring because that's what I have, but powdered colour would also work well These are the colours I use for my original koi cake, but they can be customized however you like Starting with the lilypads, roll out a small portion of the green dough and flatten it between two sheets of parchment paper Carefully cut out a small wedge from the circle and that's a lilypad! I like to make a few extra, of various sizes, so I have a selection to choose from when i decorate Now for the lilies, roll out a strip of coloured dough, I used pink, and flatten it into a long sheet Past this point there isn't really a set technique, I'm really just bs'ing it too But Iike to trim off the top and bottom and section it across the center to even it out Cut out each individual petal of the flower, the general shape should be tapered at the ends To shape the petals, use a needlepoint tool to make an indent down the center, then pinch together each end This is a really tedious process, and honestly this entire cake is just a huge inconvenience You only really need maybe 20 petals or so to make a decent flower, but extras can't hurt To assemble the flower, combine the petals, by pressing them together at one end I like to start with 5 petals in the centre and then work my way out The size of the petals don’t have to be too consistent, but typically petals on the outside should be longer than the ones in the center One you're happy with the flower, cut of the bottom and attach it to a lily pad With the remaining green dough, flatten it out and cut out the leaves for the cattails The process is the same as the petals, just a little bigger in size Next, for the koi fish, use white nerikiri dough to form the body The general shape is a bit curved with a wider head and thinner tail For the pattern on the koi, break off small pieces of coloured dough, here I use orange Gently press them onto the body where you want the patterns to be Use a needlepoint tool to spread the coloured dough into irregular shapes, to mimic the iconic colour patterns of a koi fish Here I'm doing the same, just with black dough Don't be disheartened if it looks weird in the beginning, just trust the process For the tail and fins, flatten a small piece of white dough, and cut out the desired shape Attach them onto the body with the needlepoint tool I completely forgot to add the dorsal fins on these koi, so if you want anatomically correct fish, add a small fin on the top of the koi as well For the eyes, i use black sesame seeds, but you can also use the black nerikiri dough For a six inch cake, typically I made 3 koi fish For the rest of the decorations, combine whats left of the white dough with a little bit of black at a time to form different shades of grey Then roll out various sizes of pebbles and rocks to lay at the bottom of the pond For the cattails, colour the remaining plain nerikiri dough brown Roll out thin pieces of the dough and attach them to small bamboo skewers These are the basic elements of the koi cake, but you can make practically any decorations you’d like with the nerikiri dough On to the mousse cake, you’ll need milk, egg yolks, sugar, gelatin, and white chocolate for the custard You’ll also need heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract for the base Add a few tablespoons of milk to the gelatin, mixing until completely saturated Set aside to bloom, and in a saucepan, add in your egg yolks, sugar, and remaining milk Mix well and transfer to a stovetop at low heat, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens up If you’re using a bar of white chocolate like I am, roughly chop it up, on preferably a more stable cutting board than mine, and add to the custard while still warm Also add in the bloomed gelatin, and mix until melted and smooth Transfer to a separate bowl, and cover with plastic wrap In the bowl of a stand mixer, add in your heavy cream Whip the cream at low to medium speed for about 4 minutes Once the cream just begins to thicken, add in the powdered sugar and vanilla extract The consistency we’re looking for is whipped but still a bit runny, just before it hits soft peaks Add the custard into the whipped cream and fold until well combined Split the mousse evenly into two separate containers And at this point, if the mousse becomes too thick to work with you can microwave it for 15 seconds at a time Colour one half blue using gel or powder colouring 12 minutes into the video and we’re finally at the cake portion of the cake For the base, use a layer of your favourite cake, I used chiffon cake that I coloured grey To keep it neat I’m lining the outside with a sheet of acetate, and securing with a ring mould Pour in the first layer of mousse, and refrigerate until completely set Then do the same with the second layer of blue mousse For the jelly layer, I actually use lychee coconut jelly cups They taste way better than agar powder, although its a pain to open each one In total i used approximately 25 Microwave in 30 second intervals until completely melted The brand I used has cubes of coconut jelly inside that I took out after melting Add gel colouring and mix well Finally for my favorite part, assembly and decoration For my base layer, I placed the pebbles along with one koi fish Once you’re happy with the layout, pour in half of the jelly for the first layer Once it’s set, place the remaining koi fish, followed by the second layer of jelly To finish, top it off with the lilies, lilypads, and cattails And that was the full, far too complicated process of making this cake, Is it worth it? I’m not sure, I’m numb at this point But please let me know what other tutorials you might like to see This was kinda painful to film on my $10 tripod and iPhone, and also the footage in this video is from two separate attempts to film, so that's why the cakes don't look exactly the same But all that aside thank you for watching, and I hope to see you here again
Japanese maybe?