White Chocolate, Strawberry Cream

White Chocolate Cream

500 gr milk
1 lemon zest
50 gr sugar
100 gr egg yolks
7 gr gelatins
290 gr white chocolate (35% cocoa)

Place the lemon zest in the milk and let it infuse for an hour. Hydrate the gelatin in cold water. Heat up the milk and make a Crème Anglaise with the sugar and the eggs. Add the strain gelatins leaves and pass through a chinois over the melted white chocolate and make an emulsion with a hand mixer. Let the cream crystalize in the fridge for 3 hours.

Strawberry Compote

280 gr strawberry puree
100 gr strawberries in pieces
70 gr sugar
9 gr pectin NH
1 gr citric acid (or adjust the sweetness with some lemon juice)

Temper the puree 40°C, whisk in the mixture of sugar and pectin and cook while continuously stirring. Once it gets to the boil add the fruit. Simmer 3-5 min and finally whisk in the citric acid. Pour into a frame and freeze.

Caramelized Almonds

100 gr sugar
60 gr water
100 gr almonds

Make a caramel at 118°C. Add the slightly roasted almonds. Mix constantly until the almonds get a light brown color. Pour over a baking paper and let them cool down.

White Chocolate Almond Disk

50 gr feuilletine
150 gr caramelized almonds in small pieces
100 gr melted white chocolate
200 gr almond praline

In a bowl mix all the ingredients together. Spread in the desired thickness and cut with a metal ring (diameter of the ring should be the same like the diameter of the silicon mold).

Decor

300 gr white chocolate
15 gr vegetable oil
Red cocoa butter for décor

In a plastic bowl you melt the white chocolate and the oil. If you don’t have a microwave oven you can use a pot. Whip the white chocolate cream lightly. In a half-sphere silicone mold fill half with the whipped white chocolate cream. Add some caramelized almonds and the strawberry compote jelly frozen directly from the freezer. Add some more cream and close the white sphere with the white chocolate almond disk. We freeze for several hours and we dip the frozen chocolate half sphere in the melted chocolate and vegetable oil. When the chocolate and cacao butter are crystallized we can sprinkle some of the red cocoa butter.

Assembly

Pensile the cold meringue with the chocolate inside and outside with the white cocoa butter mix and let it cool down. Sprinkle after with the red cocoa butter to get the right effect only for the outside side. Fill half of the meringue with the cream and add the strawberry compote. Fill the rest of the meringue and sprinkle some of the caramelized almond. Close the meringue with the crispy almond disk.

Photo Credit: Anastasia Loukrezi