Up your baking and pastry making skills with these recipes from the Richemont Masterbaker Centre For Excellence in Baking & Pastry located in Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai
Opus milk chocolate & apricot entremet
By Chef Christiane Trilck
Offering a superb balance between cocoa notes and fruity apricot flavours, this cake is perfected with a crunchy cocoa nib short crust bottom layer.
Cocoa nib short crust
100g Beuralia 82% butter
67g caster sugar
3g vanilla sugar
27g Egg Station pasteurised whole egg
1g salt
167g Schapfenmuehle German flour T45
70g Felchlin cocoa nibs
Method
Mix soft butter (room temperature) with sugar until combined. Do not apply intensive mixing (intensive mixing can cause pastries to brittle). Add the eggs slowly to avoid curdling and mix the salt and vanilla sugar in the butter mix. Add the flour and mix until smooth. Mix only until combined to avoid development of gluten. Cover the pastry with cling film and store until processing at 2-5C.
Apricot jam
270g Apricot puree
75g caster sugar
8g Pectin X58
3g lemon juice
20g gelatin mass*
Method
Mix the Pectin X58 and the sugar together dry. Add to the cold apricot puree and start boiling it like a jam. Then add the lemon juice and gelatin mass. Take half of the apricot jam and pour on to the short paste base and cover with the marzipan sponge. Mix the other half of the jam with chopped apricots (fresh or frozen) and fill in a ring. Freeze the ring as a center.
*Gelatin mass: 1gm gelatin powder + 5gm water = 6gm gelatin mass
Marzipan sponge sheets
165g marzipan 60%
100g Egg Station egg yolk
50g caster sugar
25g liquid sorbitol
100g Egg Station egg white
75g Caster sugar
90gm Schapfenmuehle German flour T45
Method
Mix the marzipan with the 50g caster sugar and liquid sorbitol in a mixing bowl with whisk attachment. Add slowly the egg yolk and mix until there are no more lumps in the mixture. In a second bowl make a meringue with the egg white and the 75g caster sugar. Fold the meringue into the marzipan mixture. Fold in the flour and pipe or spread onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Bake at 180C for 9-10 minutes.
Opus milk chocolate mousse
90g Egg Station pasteurised egg yolk
50g sugar
375g Felchlin Opus milk chocolate
16g gelatin
600g Beuralia 35.1% dairy whipping cream
Method
Fill the egg yolk and the sugar in a mixing bowl. Warm the egg yolk and the sugar in a bain-marie to 40C. Once it is on 40C start to whisk it in a machine on fast speed. In the meantime, melt the Opus milk chocolate to max 45C. Soak the gelatin in cold water, squeeze out and melt. Add the melted milk chocolate to the whipped up egg, followed by the melted gelatin. Fold in the semi-whipped cream and fill in moulds.
Dark chocolate glaze
375g caster sugar
625g water
200g glucose syrup
250ml Beuralia 35.1% whipping cream
375g Mildo cold glaze neutral
175g Felchlin cocoa powder
60g Gelatin
Method
Boil the water and the cream together with the glucose syrup. Dry mix the caster sugar with the cocoa powder and add to the boiling mixture. Constantly stirring. As soon as the mixture starts boiling take it off the stove. Add the soaked and squeezed out gelatin and the cold glaze. Stir well and strain thru a sieve. Store at 2-5C until needed. Before using warm it to around 28-30C. Then glaze.
Assembly
Take a short pastry as a base layer. Pour half of the apricot jam on top and cover with a layer of marzipan sponge. Fill a layer of milk chocolate mousse on top of the sponge. Add the apricot centre and cover again with milk chocolate mousse. Keep the cake in the freezer. Once it is completely frozen glaze with the chocolate glaze and decorate.
Chef’s tips
- To avoid chewy pastry, make sure you do not knead too intensely.
Flour in dough with high-fat content loses binding power when kneaded too intensively as fat partly liquefies during kneading and penetrates the flour particles.
- If you have chewy pastry, you may not have used enough butter – therefore there will be a high milk and water content in comparison.
- Avoid incorporating excessively re-worked pastry.
- To avoid spreading during baking, ensure the pastry doesn’t have too much leaving agent, the pastry isn’t too aerated or too soft.
Fig bread
By Chef Roland Eitzinger
With a unique blend of fruity, sweet and savoury flavours, this fig bread beautifully combines dried fruits and nuts. Serve with a selection of cheese or simply toasted with a spread of butter. As a bonus, this decorative loaf is perfect for jazzing up the look of your breadboard.
Dough
1000g wheat flour 550
670g water
140g malt, liquid, dissolve in water
200g Baker’s yeast
330g fermented dough, mix with above ingredients
23.5g salt, add half way through mixing time and knead well
Split dough
800g fold up dough
1257g basic dough*
Fruit dough
1257g basic dough*
470g figs, coarsely cut
400g sultanas
330g walnuts, broken
Gently mix under dough
Proof/ dough relaxation: 60 minutes
Method
Fruit dough
Knead 5 pieces of dough into a 490g longish shape.
Fold up dough
Fold 5 pieces of dough 110g to a rectangular shape and roll out to 2-2.2 mm (15×20 cm). Slightly brush rectangles with water, put pre-kneaded fruit bulk pastries on it and wrap. Knead bulk pastries slightly longish, place on sheet with cloth and let ferment well.
Preparation for baking
Slightly brush wrapped bread loaves with water in the middle. Place prepared decoration strip on bread loaves and dust them with wheat flour. Cut in with a knife on both sides and cut the decoration strip with scissors to a pointy shape.
Baking
Bake in a medium warm oven with steam. Open pull half way through baking time and finish off baking until crisp.
For more information, visit richemont-masterbaker.com
