Chefs Blog in Sydney

Recipes from the Chef – New years chocolate treat

I hope you have had a wonderful festive season and are finding it easy to stick to your new years resolutions. It’s early January and I’ve broken one of mine already.

Every year on the 31st of December one of my resolutions is to give up my chocolate binges, and then a week later I’m in the kitchen making a delicious Chocolate-hazelnut dacquoise. It may be naughty but it is certainly worth it!

This recipe serves about 8 people and the can be frozen and forgotten about until needed… but unfortunately they never last that long in my house.

Ingredients

Hazelnut meringues
5 eggwhites
55gm (¼ cup) white sugar
160gm (1 cup) pure icing sugar
45gm (½ cup) almond meal
50gm (½ cup) hazelnut meal

Chocolate mixture
4 eggs, separated
55gm (¼ cup) caster sugar
500ml (2 cups) heavy cream (45% fat)
180gm dark chocolate (53% cocoa solids), melted
100gm hazelnuts, roasted, peeled and finely chopped
For dusting:  Dutch-process cocoa

Method

1 For the hazelnut meringues, preheat oven to 130C. Whisk eggwhites in an electric mixer until soft peaks form. With motor running, add white sugar in batches, allowing each addition to incorporate before adding the next, until all is incorporated. Sift over icing sugar and fold through nut meals until just combined. Spread mixture into sixteen 7.5cm-diameter circles on baking paper-lined oven trays and bake, rotating trays once, until meringues are dry (1-1½ hours). Turn off oven and leave to cool completely.

2 Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks and sugar in an electric mixer until thick and pale. In a separate bowl, whisk cream until soft peaks form and refrigerate until required. In another bowl, whisk eggwhites and a pinch of salt until firm peaks form. Fold egg yolk and eggwhite mixtures, cream, chocolate and hazelnuts together and set aside.

3 Trim meringues with a 7.5cm-diameter cutter and place half the meringues in eight 7.5cm-diameter deep-ring moulds placed on a baking paper-lined oven tray (see note). Divide chocolate mixture among moulds, top with remaining meringues and freeze until firm (6 hours or overnight). Remove from moulds, dust with cocoa and serve immediately.

Note If you don’t have moulds, you can improvise by cutting stiff cardboard into eight 30cm x 7cm strips, and joining the ends with sticky tape to form rings.

I hope you enjoy this new years chocolate treat. Next time you are in town why not visit Four Elements Restaurant Sydney and experience our own delicious desert menu.

I look forward to seeing you soon.

Paul Kavanagh
Executive Chef
Four Elements Restaurant, Mercure Sydney Hotel

Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2012 - Permalink