Opéra cake

Method

1. 1 Beat the almond flour with the eggs and powdered sugar for 10 minutes, then mix in the whipped egg whites to form a jockey's dough.
2. 2 Spread the dough into three thin sheets, 5 mm thick, on a baking tray and bake at 220 degrees for only 7 minutes per sheet.
3. 3 The tea leaves must be thin and baked quickly; baking them for too long will dry them out and prevent them from absorbing the coffee syrup.
4. 4 Boil coffee with sugar and rum to make a syrup, then brush it generously onto each pastry sheet.
5. 5 Cream the butter with the coffee syrup to make buttercream and melt the chocolate with the cream to make ganache.
6. 6 Alternate layers of pastry sheets, buttercream frosting, pastry sheets, and ganache, then refrigerate for 4 hours and brush with a thin layer of chocolate glaze.

With an appliance

• Air fryer 2 hr 30 min

  Replace step 2: spray three small joconde trays with oil, cook each leaf individually at 235 degrees in a hot air oven for 4 minutes, and rotate the tray after 2 minutes; the leaves cook extremely quickly, so it's necessary to divide them into batches because the baskets are narrow.