A stunning dessert from pastry superstar Darren Hogarty of Chapter One. The Mont Blanc incorporates one of the most festive ingredients that we don’t see enough of, the humble chestnut. This is sure to impress at your next dinner party!
Dark chocolate and orange mousse
Ingredients
150g 75 percent dark chocolate
2g gelatin
100 mls of milk
120g whipped cream
Method
Soak gelatin
Bring milk to the boil and add gelatin
Pour over chocolate and blend with a hand blender until smooth
Fold in whipped cream
Pour into a small semi sphere silicon mould and freeze
Ginger shortbread
Ingredients
100g egg yolks
150g sugar
150g soft butter
125g flour
5g ground ginger
Method
Whip egg yolks and sugar in a mixer for 6 minutes
Switch to paddle and add butter beat for 1 minute
Add flour and ginger and mix until just combined
Roll between sheets of paper to the thickness of 2mm
Bake at 170 degrees for 14 minutes and cut with a ring cutter
Chestnut custard
200g chestnut purée
400g cream
5g gelatin
2 vanilla pods
400g cold cream
Soak gelatin
Bring cream and vanilla to the boil
Pour over chestnut purée and best til smooth
Pour in cold cream and mix.
Let set in fridge
Take chocolate mousse out of freezer and put on ginger shortbread. Put chestnut custard in a piping bag with a rose petal nozzle and on a pastry turn table pipe around the chocolate while always turning the table. Garnish with caramelized nuts and meringue.
Darren Hogarty lives on the cutting edge of pastry. He speaks with such eloquence on the topic of what it means for food to be Irish, making him the ace in Chapter One’s deck. In Cathal Brugha Street at 16, he knew since then cooking was for him, although he has ‘no earthly idea where it came from’. His pastry journey includes a twist of fate. A promising chef at 21, filled with an inexplicable passion for cooking from a young age, he discovered he had developed a severe seafood allergy. Did he feel hard done by having the decision to specialise in pastry taken out of his hands? Not in the slightest he notes, feeling it was in fact a twist of fate which led him ‘exactly where he needed to be’. Going on to become the Head Pastry Chef for Gordon Ramsay’s London Restaurants at the age of 27 before returning to Chapter One, Darren had clearly found his calling.