Opéra Cake

Opéra cake was created by Cyrille Gavillon at the Dalloyau patisserie in Paris in the 1960s. His wife, Andrée Gavillon, named it after the Paris Opera. It became the signature preparation of Dalloyau and was adopted widely. It remains the benchmark test piece of the Parisian pâtissier.

Six layers of joconde sponge (an almond sponge), each soaked in coffee syrup, alternating with coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache, the whole finished with a mirror-flat chocolate glaze. Opéra is the pinnacle test piece of classical French patisserie assembly — it requires the correct execution of five separate preparations (joconde sponge, coffee syrup, coffee buttercream, chocolate ganache, chocolate glaze) and the assembly precision to produce a perfectly level, perfectly glazed, sharply cut rectangle that shows all six layers at an exact 2cm height per slice. It is not a recipe — it is a system.

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