Welcome to How To Cook That
I am Ann Reardon and I've had requests this week to show you how
to make a magic chocolate flower dessert.
This dessert is inspired by photos of one you sent me one made by Pastry Chef Joaquim
Sousa in Portugal.
Firstly you need something to go in the middle of your dessert.
I am using a chocolate macaron.
I have a whole video that shows you how to make chocolate macarons so I'll link to it
in the description below.
Next take some tempered chocolate and pour it out onto some acetate or thin plastic and
spread it out nice and thin.
Then give it a shake from one side just to smooth the top and get rid of any air bubbles
in your chocolate.
Now using the shape and you can print this shape out from the website and just use it
as a guide make to make a curved line in the chocolate, followed by another and another
one all the way down to the end.
Then turn that whole sheet around and repeat that making a curve so that you're making
petal shapes.
Now if you don't want to do this by hand you can instead use two sheets of acetate and
cut the shape out of top one using a utility knife.
And then spread the chocolate over the top and then when you lift up the top piece of
acetate you'll be left with the petal shape.
You will need 12 petals for each dessert.
Working quickly before the chocolate hardens curve it up to make a half circle.
I am using cookie cutters to hold it in place if you have a cylinder that you can use that
would be even better.
Now for our base spread some more chocolate onto the acetate and leave to firm up and
make two chocolate truffles.
You can leave them plain or you can fill them with whatever you like I've got thirty different
chocolate truffle recipes on the how to cook that channel so you can go and choose what
you want.
To assemble the dessert use a little chocolate to secure a selection of fruit to the top
of your macaron.
Then cut circles of chocolate using a small circle cutter out of that base chocolate and
then cut each circle in half.
Take one of your chocolate truffles and use a little bit more chocolate to secure the
macaron on top of that . Now this lifts it off the base so the petals can go around it.
Once you chocolate is set, remove the cookie cutters and peel of the acetate.
And gently seperate out the petals from that spare chocolate.
And you can just remelt that spare chocolate and re-temper it to use it again.
Arrange the petals around a silicone hemisphere mold.
If you don't have one of these you can just arrange them on the bench but it is going
to be a little bit harder.
Then using some more chocolate add the base in place and this is going to hold all the
petals in place right where we want them.
Repeat that of course to make the other half.
To make our creme anglaise or thin custard sauce.
You will need egg yolks, sugar, cream, milk and a vanilla bean.
I'll put all the recipe quantities on the howtocookthat.net website in gram and and
ounces and cups.
Cut your vanilla bean in half and you'll see this sticky mass inside.
Just use your knife to scrape it off and add it into the cream.
Pour the cream and the milk into a saucepan and you can add the vanilla bean pod in there
too.
While that is heating whisk together sugar and your egg yolks.
Keep an eye on your cream and milk because you don't want it to boil over.
Once it just starts to boil remove it from the heat .
Pour into the egg yolk mixture whisking well as you do.
Once it is well mixed in really well pour it back into the saucepan.
And just put it to one side for now and we'll heat that up in a minute.
Now take one half of your petals and use a little bit of chocolate to hold it in place
in the centre of your bowl.
Then add the chocolate macaron to the middle there.
And carefully add the other half into place trying not to break any of your petals off.
If you broke on off like I did just use a bit more chocolate to secure it back into
place being careful not to fuse it to the other petals.
We want each one to be on it's own Add a decoration to the top, if you have edible
flowers they will be ideal but I don't have any so I am using a strawberry cut like a
flower.
Leave that at room temperature.
When you are ready to serve the dessert return your anglaise to the heat and heat up to 185
degrees farenheit.
If you heat it hotter than that it will curdle the cream.
Immediately pour it through a sieve into a jug.
Then take your dessert to the table and pour some hot anglaise into the bowl.
The hot sauce melts the base of the petals making them fall open beautifully and gracefully.
You can experiment with different desserts at the centre of your flower.
Why not even an engagement ring if you want to propose.
And make sure you subscribe to how to cook that for more cakes chocolates and desserts
put all of your requests in the comments below.
Click here to go to the channel to get the macaron recipe how to temper chocolate and
heaps of other stuff.
Here for last weeks emoji cheesecakes and here for the How To Cook That website have
a great week and I'll see you all on Friday.
[music: the boat song by youtube.com/setsailtv used with permission]