The trick with an O pera Gateau is getting all the component parts prepared, and most of these can be prepared ahead of time: the recipe for each is given below. Roughly crushed cornflakes or rice crispies mixed with melted chocolate and praline paste gives an acceptable substitute: it isn’t quite the same but it’s easy and it works well enough.

You can buy pailleté feuilletine from kitchen stockists although they are easy to make (recipe below). The pailletés feuilletines (“small flaky leaves”) are essentially very thin, crunchy tuiles. I like a bit of crunch, so I added a little pailleté feuilletine, which I mixed with some melted chocolate and praline paste, leaving it to set before crumbling it and adding it to a few of the layers. Opera gateau Pailleté feuilletine layers: The recipe is a slight variation on the traditional joconde sponges: this time I used hazelnuts for a slightly different flavour to the sponge rather than almonds. I would normally make a rectangular Opera Gateau but I could not for the life of me find any of my rectangular loose-bottomed tins: last seen before I moved house! A rectangular cake cut into very small squares makes excellent petits fours. It is a few years since I last made an O pera Gateau so I felt it was time to re-visit this classic cake.

Easiest opera cake recipe