Recipe of the month

CHOCOLATE SUN

LIGHT ORANGE-COCOA SPONGE

• Egg whites 540 g
• Caster sugar 450 g
• Blood orange zests 70 g
• Flour 375 g
• Potato starch 160 g
• Cocoa powder 190 g

Whip whites with half of sugar until a firm meringue, add remaining sugar and orange zests. Add sifted powders and weigh 1,300 g per tray and bake at 160°C for 25 minutes in fan forced oven. Cool and cut 12 cm diameter discs (2 discs per cake with one of the sponges spread with melted dark chocolate).

BLOOD ORANGE CREAM

• Eggs 400 g
• Caster sugar 300 g
• Orange juice (reduced on low heat for 20 min) 300 g
• Lemon juice 100 g
• Pectin NH 15 g
• Butter 400 g

Boil juice with sugar mixed with pectin. Add eggs and cook for 5 minutes before cooling to 35°C add butter at 20°Cand emulsify with hand blender. Pour into rings onto guitar sheets into 12 cm diameter rings at 1 cm high (lined with acetate) before blast freezing.

ORANGE MARMALADE

• Whole oranges 400 g
• Caster sugar 130 g
• Water 50 g
• Vanilla bean 1/2 piece
• Orange juice 100 g
• Caster sugar 20 g
• Yellow pectin 8 g
• Lemon juice 10 g

Cut orange in slices of ½ cm thick, blanch in simmering water for 10 minutes before straining. Cut into small pieces with a chef’s knife. Place water into saucepan with 130 g sugar, vanilla and add blanched oranges as well as juice and cook for 10 minutes. Add 20 g remaining sugar with pectin and cook for another 10 minutes constantly stirring. Finish with lemon juice, leave to cool at room temperature before pouring onto orange cream and freezing.

LIGHT DARK CHOCOLATE INTENSE MOUSSE ÉQUATEUR FROM "LA MANUFACTURE DE CHOCOLAT NICOLAS BERGER"

• Full cream milk 190 g
• Cream 35% fat 120 g
• Egg yolks, pasteurised 300 g
• Caster sugar 180 g
• Egg whites 245 g
• Couverture Équateur 65% 265 g
• Équateur 100% cocoa paste 350 g
• Cream 35% fat, semi-whipped 900 g

Boil milk with cream and add yolks. Add chocolates melted to 60°C and blend with hand blender. Fold semi-whipped cream into chocolate base. Use immediately.

CHOCOLATE GLAZE

• Cream 35% fat 1,400 g
• 30° Baume syrup 260 g
• Glucose 400 g
• Dark chocolate équateur 75% (Nicolas Berger) 400 g
• Compound chocolate 1,800 g
• Grapeseed oil 140 g
• Intense red colouring as nec.

Boil cream, syrup, cream, glucose in saucepan. Pour onto chocolates, add oil and emulsify with hand blender.

ASSEMBLY

Assemble upside down: place a 13 cm ring with a 6 cm wide strip acetate onto a guitar sheet and pour 300 g mousse. Add sponge disc and press well. Add 100 g mousse, then orange insert (with cream on top) press well and add another 100 g mousse. Finish with sponge that has been spread with dark chocolate on top and blast freeze. After 30 minutes remove rings and glaze. Finish with chocolate decorations Important point: When making mousse, make sure the emulsify chocolates with a hand blender and start the mixtures when hot.