21/01/2015
Chocolate and hazelnut croquant with popcorn sorbet by Phil Carnegie
*This sounds absolutely scrumptious. Give it a go pastry chefs!
Phillip Carnegie was raised by a family of chefs. His brother worked in kitchens and his mother prepared food for a nursing home in a village near Alford where he grew up. For more info: http://bit.ly/1yyoS13
Ingredients
For the Croquant
3 egg whites
35g of caster sugar
90g of ground almonds
100g of icing sugar
100g of whole hazelnuts, toasted and chopped
1 tbsp of butter
200g of praline
100g of milk chocolate
100g of dark chocolate
160ml of double cream
50g of whole hazelnuts, toasted
100g of cornflakes
For the Sorbet
1l of milk
125g of butter
250g of golden syrup
130ml of glucose
100g of popcorn
For the chocolate sauce
170g of dark chocolate
170ml of water
115g of caster sugar
55g of butter
1 tsp of vanilla extract
For the raspberry coulis
125g of fresh raspberries
25g of caster sugar
1/4 tsp of vanilla extract
For the sugar work
140g of granulated sugar
140ml of water, hot
1/4 tsp of lemon juice
Method
For the croquant, whisk the egg whites and sugar together, fold in the ground almonds and icing sugar, then spread into deep trays and sprinkle with the hazelnuts. Bake at 160°C/Gas mark 3
Then, melt the butter, praline, chocolates and cream. Add the hazelnuts and then the cornflakes and spread on a cold baseTo make the sorbet, bring the milk, butter, syrup and glucose to the boil and add the popcorn. Leave to infuse for 2 hours
Pass through a sieve and cool. Put the set butter into an ice cream maker and churn
To make the chocolate sauce for plating, break the chocolate into small pieces and cut the butter into small pieces. Place all of the ingredients together in a saucepan and heat over a low heat, stirring continuously. Once all the ingredients have melted and blended together, remove from the heat and transfer to a piping bag with a thin nozzle
To make the raspberry coulis, simmer the fruit with the caster sugar and 4 tablespoons of water until the fruit bursts. Cool, then whizz in a food processor with the vanilla extract. Strain.
Lastly, start the sugar work for plating. Put the sugar, hot water and lemon juice in a very clean saucepan, place over a low heat and use a spoon to agitate the sugar so that it dissolves.
Increase the heat to high to begin rapid boiling: you need to boil the sugar syrup down to either a caramel or a 'hard crack' stage which occurs at 155-160°C. Take one whole hazelnut per plate and dip it into the sugar. Leave to cool for a few seconds, then carefully pinch the sugar at the top of the nut and pull, stretching the sugar out
To plate, pipe some of the chocolate across the plate. Position some droplets of the coulis to one side of the plate. Position a serving of the croquant next to the coulis, and quenelle some sorbet on top. Position the sugared nut next to the croquant and serve immediately
