Welcome to How To Cook That I am Ann Reardon and today we are making this pretty dessert
that has a chocolate glaze and a white chocolate spiral over the top.
And inside, it has chocolate mousse, a caramel creme brulee, salted caramel and a layer of
chocolate cake and we'll make that cake first.
For that you will need flour, cocoa powder, melted butter, egg yolks, one amount of sugar,
egg whites and another small amount of sugar.
Pour the sugar into the egg whites and the larger amount of sugar into the yolks.
Then you want to whip the whites together with that sugar until you get soft peaks.
And I'll put all the recipe quantities on the howtocookthat.net website for you and
I'll link to that below.
Then use the same beaters to whip the egg yolks and if you keep whipping them they'll
become pale and thick like this.
Fold about a third of the whites into the yolks, and you can be quite rough with that.
And then sift the flour and cocoa powder over the top.
Sifting it gets rid of any lumps and it adds air to the mixture.
Fold that through, and we are trying to keep as much air in as possible because there is
no baking powde we are just using the air that we are adding when we are mixing it.
And that will expand when we bake.
Add in the rest of the whites and continue to fold those through.
Now tip a small amount of this mixture into a bowl and add the melted butter and mix that
through thoroughly, really well just adding it in like this will make it easier to combine
it with the rest of the mixture.
Add it into the rest of it and incorporate it by just folding it gently through, again
we don't want to whip this up because we don't want all the air out of it, we want to keep
as much in as possible.
And then once you're sure there are no more dry bits of flour and cocoa powder.
Pour that into a tray and spread it out thinly, we only just want a small layer of this cake
in each of our desserts.
Then bake that in a moderate oven.
Once it is cooked we need to make a syrup using water, sugar and a little vanilla.
Mix those together and heat that either over the stove or in the microwave until the sugar
is dissolved.
Pour that over the cooked cake while it is still in the tray and just leave that to one
side.
To make the caramel brulee you'll need sugar, egg yolks, milk, cream, a bit more sugar and
2 sheets of gelatin and some water to put that in.
So the first thing we are going to do is put the gelatin in the water and leave that to
soak.
Place a pan over high heat and sprinkle in some of your sugar.
Now if you just keep an eye on that, you'll see the sugar will start to melt.
As it does, sprinkle more sugar over the top.
And once you've added it all give it a good stir to make sure you have a nice even brown
caramel.
Don't overcook it or it will burn and you'll a pungent burnt sugar taste which is not what
you're after.
Pour in the milk, being careful of the steam there.
The caramel will harden with the cold milk, but it is ok just keep stirring as the milk
heats up that caramel will dissolve giving a beautiful caramel flavour to our brulee.
Add in the cream and continue to stir.
Whip the egg yolk and sugar together and then whisk in a little of the hot mixture.
Whoa, I just steamed up my camera lens there.
Then add that back into the pan on the stovetop.
And heat this for just a minute until you start to see it cling to the base of the pan
when you tilt it.
Squeeze the extra water out of the gelatin and add that into the pan too.
Now I will also put the amounts for powdered gelatin on the website as well in case you
don't have the sheets.
Stir that in and then tip that into a tray lined with foil to make it easy to get out
later and put it in the freezer overnight.
For our salted caramel we need cream, sugar, butter and sea salt.
Melt the sugar in the pan, just like we did before letting one layer melt and putting
more over the top and then stirring it once it's a nice brown.
Then add in the salt, pour in the cream and stir that until it's smooth and all that caramel
has dissolved into the cream.
Then add in the butter and stir it through.
We want to continue to heat this to thicken it up and to test if it's thick enough you
can drop some into some cool water in a glass and if it goes thick like this, then that's
about the consistency that you want.
Pour that into a heatproof container and leave it to cool.
This stuff tastes amazing, you might want to make a bowl just to eat that by the spoonful.
Now for the rich mousse ... you'll need chocolate, egg yolks, more eggs,
water, sugar and cream.
Firstly put the yolks and the eggs into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat it on high
speed until they become fluffy and pale.
Place the sugar and water into a pan and heat it up, add a candy thermometer and heat it
until it reaches 244F or 118C and then pour that into the eggs with the mixers running.
Keep the mixers going until you can feel the side of the bowl and it feels cool.
Whip the cream to soft peaks.
And then fold in your melted chocolate into the cream.
And then add the egg mixture and fold them all together to make a rich, delicious chocolate
mousse.
Take the brulee out of the freezer and using a cookie cutter push down firmly to cut circles
and do the same with your cake.
So that we end up with little circles of both.
Spread a circle of your cake with some of our yummy salted caramel, and then add on
top of that a disc of frozen brulee and push it down slightly.
In a hemisphere mold add some of the mousse down the base into each one.
Then add one of the circles brulee side down and push it into the mousse.
Then neaten up the top using a spatula.
Now you want to place those in the freezer to set firmly so they're ready for glazing.
Now for that shiny glaze that goes over the top is quite easy to make.
All you need is some water, gelatin, cream, sugar, more water, cocoa powder and glucose
syrup.
Pour the gelatin into the water and stir that well and place it to one side.
Put the sugar, water and the cream into a bowl and heat it in the microwave or the stovetop
until the sugar is dissolved.
Sift in your cocoa powder over the top to make sure there are no lumps and use a whisk
to stir it in really well.
Then add your gelatin, that will of absorbed all the water so you can stir that in and
it will melt in the glaze and this is what makes the glaze set as you pour it over the
cold dessert.
Then lastly add in your glucose syrup and this is what gives it that mirror shiny finish.
And you want to let that glaze cool down until it is only slightly warm.
If you pour it on your dessert when it is too hot it will just melt a layer of the dessert
and slide off.
To make your chocolate spirals, you're going to need a cake turntable or a lazy susan,
and some baking paper on top of that.
You just need to spin it and hold the bag steady, moving it out slightly as the paper
spins.
Then you can move your baking paper and while that one is setting you can make another one.
Make sure you are using either compound chocolate for this or tempered chocolate, so if you're
using real chocolate with cocoa butter in it then you have to temper it or this decoration
won't set.
And I have a whole video called CHOCOLATE SECRETS that explains how to temper chocolate.
Take your frozen dessert out of the hemisphere mold and rest it on a small cookie cutter
or something that lifts it up.
Pour the glaze all ... over ... the ... top and let it slowly drip down... now because
the dessert is frozen so it's cold, the gelatin sets and a thin layer, leaving that layer
of glaze over the dessert.
It's called a mirror glaze because it is so shiny it's like a mirror - Hello!
Wait until it stops dripping and then transfer it to a plate.
Beautiful!
Now add the chocolate spiral over the top and pop those in the fridge for about an hour
for the centre to defrost before you serve them.
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Click here for the recipe, here for last week's Giant Butterfinger video and here for my YouTube
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Make it a great week and I'll see you Friday.