Your instructions are clear and very helpful with the photos (i am a visual person so this in invaluable)

I personally agree with the vanilla bean issue and ever since I started making panacotta we got onto Vanilla Bean Paste. It is the BEST! $10 a little pot from most grocery stores. It is vanilla bean extract with the vanilla seeds. There is 65g in a little pot – 1tsp = 1 whole vanilla bean. 1 tsp is 5g so that gives you 13 tsp’s in a pot – or 13 vanilla beans. For $10 I think this is great value! Give it a go! it looks really authentic with the little black vanilla seeds in your dessert.

And thanks again for this amazing step by step guide for this cake Anita! Well done!

I had some pockets, and when I added the glaze, the creme chantilly just subsided into the holes – very frightening as the cake looks so beautiful before that.

I was able to repair the holes with leftover chantilly and it turned out fine, but it would have been easier if I hadn’t had air pockets.

I’m so glad I found your site as I was bewildered by the recipe, mainly the strange ingredients. My cake resembled yours and tasted fantastic. I also added in a lot of other people’s suggestions, such as using hazelnut meal instead of almond in some of the layers.

I have to admit that the cake took about 10 hours over two days from start to finish. I had little components all over the kitchen, fridge and freezer with post-it notes on them! I had to label everything carefully as I find the terminology used is very confusing – the names are so similar, and few of them are normal for a home cook.

Despite the time it takes, it really is something special as far as cakes go. I nearly had a fit when placing it on the table ready for the candles, as my young nephew reached out a hand to swipe off some of the glaze!

I made it for my daughters 18th birthday. It is also expensive especially the vanilla beans. I found a company in western Australia where you can buy bulk they actually grow them dry them and sell them at $14 dollars for 14 pods at 18-20cm in length you can even buy more or different sizes.

The website is http://www.naturalvanilla.com.au/ I will be buying my vanilla beans from them from now on they are ridiculously expensive from the local shops coles and woolworths.

It just shows how much profit they make from this one product. I paid $8 dollars from woolworths for two small pods. $4 friggin bucks a pod a rip off

If this place sells them at $1 dollar a pod and still make profit why does coles and woolies sell them so much…..

Anyway people try this cake it really is delicious well worth my time making it.
But I would suggest do it with a partner and leave enough time some stuff you can do the day prior.

Good Luck and enjoy eating MMMmmmmmmm………

needless to say our presentation was a disaster as well – tastes wonderful though!

to break this down we put all the ingredients into excel and then sorted! but should’ve done the instructions in point form too for some of them – particularly the glaze where we used your miroir glaze recipe anita –

completely agree that there was way too much of some of the layers to fit in the tin! (if they had set that is!)

does anyone know where a good site for gelatine explanations / conversions is? we had sheet gelatine and powdered but not sure if it was actually gold strength?

great idea lucy for buying the vanilla beans on ebay – they are just beautiful but hideously expensive – best price I could find retail was $2.50 per bean at executivechef in brisbane or $4 each in woolworths (packs of two).

I have tried making this cake but it somewhat turned out not as good. This is because my chantilly cream failed and it was so fluid instead of being a cream. What did I do wrong? Any advise? Thanks!