Opera Patisserie

Opera Patisserie.  It sounds, uh, French perhaps.  And like it should have a fancy storefront.  But no, Opera Patisserie is a wholesale bakery, specializing in mostly cakes, along with savory quiches, for the hospitality industry, with no physical retail store.  They are based in Southern California.

"Since 2002 Opera Patisserie has been creating desserts for the hospitality setting that are innovative and exciting as well as beautifully presented and delicious. The ingredients are some of the finest available such as chocolate from Belgium, fruit purees from France as well as the best local California products such as almonds flour and dairy items. Many of the items are Gluten Free."

That said, they do promise quality sourcing, chocolate from Belgium, fruit puree from France, yadda yadda, and they do actually offer a large number of gluten-free or vegan items.  My distributor offered most of their product line, so I was eager to try out items from across the menu, and happy that I'd be able to offer desserts to my gluten-free diners.

But alas, nearly everything we tried was ... really quite bad.  And we tried quite a few.  All awful, except one, single item.

Tartlets

Opera Patisserie makes tartlets in 8 flavors: Pistachio, Lemon Meringue, Key Lime, Chocolate, Coconut, Red Berry, Apple Crumble, and Salted Caramel.  They are all bite sized, use the same tart shells, and arrive frozen.  I've tried several, and they are all awful.

Apple Crumble.

The first tartlet I tried looked ok.  A cute little apple crumble.

But the tart shell was pretty horrible.  I don't like tart shells in general, but this was soggy, broke apart, and wasn't buttery or redeeming in any way.

The filling was cubes of apple (mixed with high fructose corn syrup of course), overly spiced with cinnamon/nutmeg, and was very mushy.

The crumble on top?  Also mushy/soggy.

Nothing good about this, clearly not an item that did well with defrosting.

Pistachio.

Next I went for pistachio, drawn in by the (clearly, fake) color, and creamy, pudding-like look of it.

It was no better.  And the ingredients in this?  Not so wholesome:

Cream (Milk, Carrageenan, Mono, And Diglycerides, Polysorbete 80), Food Color Green (Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Glycerine, Sugar, Modified Food Starch, Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate, Vegetable Gums, Citric Acid And E 102, E133, Blue 1, Yellow 5), Almond Essence (Water, Emulsifier: Mono-And Diglyceride From Fatty Acids, Thickener: Xanthar (0.2%), Preservative: Potassium Sorbate (0.1%), Flavors), Unbleached Flour: Unbleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Pistachio Paste (Pistachios, Sugar, Canola Oil, Natural Flavor), Confectioner Sugar (Cornstarch), Pate A Glacer Ivoire (Sugar, Hydrogenated Vegetable Fat (Coconut, Palm Kernel), Skimmed Milk Powder, Emulsifier: Soya Lecithin), Butter (Pasteurized Cream, Milk), Egg Yolk, Granulated Sugar, Egg Whole, Almond Flour, Vanilla Paste (Water, Alcohol, Sugar, Vanilla Extract, Vanilla Beans And Gun Tragacanth (Natural Thickener)), Water, Gelatin Sheets, Baking Powder (Baking Soda (For Leavening), Cornstarch, Sodium Aluminum Sulfate (For Leavening) Calcium Sulfate, Monocalcium Phosphate (For Leavening)), Chocolate White 30% (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Whole Milk Powder, Skimmed Milk Powder, Emulsifier: Soya Lecithin, Natural Vanilla Flavor), Canola Oil, Cocoa Butter Chips.

I mean, really?

Anyway, this one was just as bad as the apple.

Soggy, soft tart shell.  Strange flavored filling that was medicinal in nature.  It didn't taste like pistachio, but seriously, how could it, given how much other junk was inside?

Chocolate.

The chocolate one was equally bad.

The tart shell this time was different - mushy chocolate, sorta like a mushy brownie.  The chocolate frosting offered nothing.

Cakes

The cakes, available round or in sheet cake form, sadly, are just as bad.  I'll give a few credits for at least attempting to have decent gluten free options?

GF Tiramisu.

"Gluten Free Lady Fingers, Mascarpone Mousse, Espresso Creme Brulee, Gluten Free Crumble." 

I started with the tiramisu, always a crowd pleaser, and general kinda hard to screw up.  Enough cream, mascarpone, and espresso soak and things generally work out, right?

But ... this was ... awful.  Served as round "individual" cakes, but our cafe cut them in half to be reasonable portions.

I'm glad they did, as I felt bad wasting even what I did.

The crust? Sawdust.  Above that, a brown layer (espresso?) that was a horrible gelatinous texture.  Cardboard ladyfinger in the middle.  Ok-ish creme on top.  Bitter crumble.

Not.  Good.

GF Red Berry Opera.

"Gluten Free Vanilla Cake, Vanilla Buttercream, Red Berry Compote."

I still kept trying, as the items often looked ok ...

This one suffered from me putting it in a togo container, but I assure you, that is not why it was awful.  It was just ... awful.

Dry cake.  Mediocre "buttercream".  And the strawberry compote?  Soooo bad.  Gummy.

GF Mango Cake.

"Vanilla Cake, Vanilla Buttercream, and Mango Compote."

What about ... mango?  Nope, this was horrible too.

Mushy, mushy cake.  The cream was not interesting.  The fruity layer cloying.  Not for me, at all.

Mini Assorted Cupcakes: Vanilla, Chocolate, Red Velvet.

And then there were cupcakes.

Yup,  awful cupcakes.  The cakes were stale and dry.  Really not tasty, at all.  The vanilla didn't taste vanilla, just plain.  The red velvet tasted identical, it was just red.  Chocolate cake not very intense.  But so dry and just not good, at all.

The vanilla and red velvet were frosted with what seemed to be the same frosting ... no signature cream cheese frosting for the red velvet.  Honestly, it was just a pink version of the "vanilla" one.  Both, just plain.  The frosting was sweet and fluffy, fine really.  I liked the random nuts and chocolate on top.

The chocolate frosting was the best, really thick and fudgey.

So, frostings decent, cakes horrible.  Sigh.

Red Velvet Cake.

"Red velvet cake with cheesecake mousse and red chocolate glaze." - GourmetXpress, Distributor

"Gluten Free Red Velvet Cake / Cheesecake Mousse / Chocolate Glaze / Chocolate Crumble." - Opera Patisserie

This might be called red velvet cake, but it certainly doesn't look like any traditional red velvet cake.  Instead of cream cheese icing on top, it had a "red chocolate glaze".  It was nicely decorated at least.

And ... that is about all I have to say positive about this item.

It tasted ... odd.  Really, really ... odd.  I don't have a better word for it.  It had a funk to it that I did not appreciate.

Red Velvet: Side View.

For the side, you can see further that this is definitely not your standard red velvet cake.  It was a layered cake, with layers of red velvet cake and cheesecake mouse, rather than cream cheese frosting.  But that is not what was wrong with it.

The cake layers were mush.  Soggy mush.  Sawdust like mush.  The cake was awful, exactly the style of cake that gives gluten-free a bad reputation.  I hated the cake.

But, cheesecake mousse had promise right?  Wrong.  It was a strange texture, tasted *nothing* like cheesecake, no cream cheese flavor at all, and had a horrible aftertaste.

And the red chocolate glaze?  I think that was the worst part.  The funk was most prevalent in that glaze.

This was just horrible all around.  Bad texture, no red velvet flavor, and an aftertaste that was hard to get away from.  Do not eat this.

Individual Desserts

The last category of offerings from Opera Patisserie is "Individual Desserts", a slightly amusing categorization as aren't the tartlets and cupcakes, um, individuals too?

This category also turned out to be the only decent items I had from Opera Patisserie.

Chocolate Dome.

"Crunchy parline base, chocolate mousse, and vanilla creme brulee and cherry in brandy." -- GourmetXpress, Distributor

"Crunch Praline Base Chocolate Mousse with Vanilla Crème Brulee and  Cherry in Brandy." -- Opera Patisserie

Um, this was good.  Really, really good.  And yes, you are still reading about Opera Patisserie.

I'll start with the chocolate mousse, certainly the defining element.  It was ... really wonderful chocolate mousse, deep chocolate flavor (58% dark chocolate is used), creamy and rich, yet somehow light in texture.  A decadent mousse you felt a bit guilty eating, but loved every moment.  I would have been happy with *just* the mousse.

And it looked like just a chocolate mousse dome, but there was much more inside, exactly as described.

Chocolate Dome: Inside.

Yes, inside really was so much more.

The base was a thin crispy layer of chocolate mixed with some kind of crunchy praline, I think perhaps hazelnut, and it added just the right amount of texture.  Any thicker and it would distract, but this mixed in quite nicely.  I liked even the base, and it went so well with the mousse.

And then the middle, "vanilla creme brûlée".  Ok, it was not really creme brûlée, there wasn't a brûlée element here obviously, but there was a nicely set, rich and creamy, vanilla custard.  You know how I feel about creme brûlée, so I was thrilled by this component too.  Just like the chocolate mousse, it was really well done.  It helped cut the intense chocolate level quite a bit, but certainly didn't lighten the item up any, as custard isn't exactly a light offering.

And finally, yup, pieces of branded cherries, juicy and a bit boozy.  I did enjoy the chocolate and cherry pairing.

Put this all together, and you had texture and crunch, fabulous mousse, intense chocolate, and a bit of booziness ... really, what more does a dessert need?  I actually added a little whipped cream to lighten it up, but I decided that it wasn't really necessary.

I really enjoyed this, would happily get another.

Vegan Gluten-Free Chocolate Mousse.

"Vegan chocolate mousse and gluten free chocolate cake."

These come as squares, but our caterer cut them all in half.

Which was plenty.  This wasn't a great item.  But it wasn't awful.  Just, mediocre.

The cake wasn't dry exactly, but it was ... well, what you expect from gluten-free.  The mousse was fluffy, but not very strong in the chocolate department.

If you are vegan and gluten-free though, this could be exciting perhaps? It fared better than most of the offerings.