After watching the new season of Cardcaptor Sakura, I could not help but get addicted to the ending theme, Rewind. I wanted to incorporate the sun and moon and clock motifs into this dessert, so I opted for elderflower, lemon, and black currant as the main flavor profiles, as they best compliment one another, but more importantly, you have the bright in the lemon, the dark in the black currant, and the elegance from the elderflower. The different layers in this cake are a lemon chiffon cake, lemon-elderflower bavarian cream, black currant gelee, lemon mirror glaze, and white chocolate clock.

I honestly contemplated whether or not to share the recipe, mostly because I didn’t really know how to explain how I made the white chocolate clock. I will try my best to explain it, but it honestly does just boil down to tempering white chocolate disks, using cookie cutters to cut them out, piping clock hands, attaching everything together using melted white chocolate, and garnishing with edible glitter and pearls. I will say that the dessert came out really well, since it was basically gone within the same day I made it, but this was a two-day process, just because of how much time it took for me to temper and assemble the clock itself.

For the meyer lemon chiffon cake:
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
2 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 tablespoons canola oil
2 1/2 tablespoons meyer lemon zest; finely grated
1 1/2 tablespoons meyer lemon juice
a pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whip egg whites, lemon juice, the sugar, salt, vanilla, and baking soda until it forms stiff peaks. Whip the egg yolk with canola oil to stiff peaks as well. Sift the flour. Combine everything and pour into a lined 5 inch ring mold. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. Cool in the oven, turned off, for 4 minutes, before removing so that the cake does not collapse into itself.

For the black currant gelee:
1/2 cup black currant puree
a pinch of salt
3 tablespoons agar agar

Combine ingredients and bring to a simmer. Pour into a 5 inch ring mold and freeze until solid.

For the bavarian cream:
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons elderflower liquor + 1 1/2 teaspoons gelatin powder
1/4 cup meyer lemon juice
2 tablespoons meyer lemon zest
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup heavy cream; whipped stiff
a pinch of salt

Combine sugar with egg yolks and salt. Melt gelatin into lemon juice and zest. Temper with egg yolks. Whip over medium-high heat for 3 minutes, then strain. Once the egg mixture is room temperature, fold in the stiff cream.

For the mirror glaze:
1 1/2 tablespoons gelatin powder + 3 tablespoons cold water
1/4 cup meyer lemon juice
7 oz condensed milk
1 cup white chocolate
1 tablespoon mizuame

Melt down the bloomed gelatin into the lemon juice and mizuame. Pour over the white chocolate. Blend in the condensed milk. Pass through a strainer. Take half of the glaze and add in blue food coloring. Pour the blue glaze into the white glaze when it is time for assembly, making sure that both are at 90 degrees F for optimal pouring.

For the white chocolate clock:
2 cups white chocolate
Acetate sheets

Bring 1 1/2 cups of white chocolate up to 100 degrees F. Add in the remaining 1/2 cup and stir together, off heat, until the mixture is back down to 85 degrees F. Pour onto an acetate sheet, and press another sheet onto the chocolate. Spread out to about 1/8th an inch thickness and allow to cool for 10 minutes before pressing with the ring molds. You will need one six inch circle, three four inch circles, and three two inch circles. Reserve the remaining chocolate pieces, as you will be re-melting those to pipe out the clock hands, which you will need three of, onto the acetate, and to glue together the circles.

Dust with edible glitter to finish, and press edible pearls into the clock hands before they set to add another texture into the chocolate

For assembly:
In a lined 6 inch ring mold, pour 1/4th of the bavarian down and freeze it solid. Follow that with the gelee, and then the remaining bavarian, and then the cake. Freeze solid, in 3-4 hours, then remove from the ring mold. Pour on the glaze, then allow the cake to sit so that the glaze can take 3-4 minutes to harden before trimming off any overflow. Garnish with the white chocolate clock.