Caramelised White Chocolate Entremet

This week I decided to give my first ever entremet a go. I first began admiring these mousse based cakes last year and the possibility of making one that tasted and looked delicious seemed nearly impossible at the time. When I recieved the book Sweet Studio by Darren Purchese last Christmas, that dream became somewhat more of a reality. Now 6 months later and after purchasing a few essential ingredients and pieces of equipment I can finally say that I have done it!

The recipe that caught my eye first in the book was one with caramelised white chocolate due to my major love affair with this chocolate! I have made chocolate blocks and ice cream with it before so I knew I couldn't go wrong. The other flavours in the entremet were passionfruit and spiced macadamia. The original recipe also contained caramelised banana creme but I chose to emit thus element so that I could keep it a little bit more simple. 

When assembling this entremet, like any other you begin by making the inserts. For this, I made a spiced macadamia pastry - this added crunch and some spice to cut through the sweetness of the cake. I also made two passionfruit elements, curd and jelly - these added tartness to cut through the sweetness of the white chocolate. Once each of the elements were ready, I assembled them together ready for construction of the cake. 

Next I had to make the caramelised white chocolate mousse so that I could assemble the cake. This was a fairly simple step. Once that was ready and my  entremet ring was lined with acetate on a baking tray, I was ready to go. First I filled the ring with 2/3 of the mousse. Then i placed my insert into the centre upsode down and gently pressed it down. I filled in around the insert with the remaining mousse and levelled it off. As I decided to make a slightly larger entremet, I did not quite have enough mousse to fill my ring which left me with a slightly smaller entremet. I froze the entremet for 3 hours. 

While that was freezing I made some chocolate garnishes to decorate the cake with once I was finished. I decided to decorate the cake differently to how it was suggested in the recipe by glazing it instead of using a velvet spray as I don't yet have a spray machine. For the chocolate garnishes I wanted to represent the passionfruit so I used some black cocoa butter to paint 'seeds' onto an acetate sheet. I learnt this technique from the book Chocolate to Savour by Kirsten Tibbals. 

Once that had set, I tempered some white chocolate using the seeding method and coloured it yellow. Then i spread it over the cocoa butter on the acetate and once it had set it cut it into circles. 

For the cake I was inspired by Anna Polyviou's Carrot Cake om Masterchef and I wanted to do a caramelised white chocolate glaze with yellow lines on it. Once I had made both of the glazes and they were are the right temperature, I took the entremet from the freezer and set it up for glazing. Once I had glazed it, I used a paper cone to pipe some lines of yellow along the side of the cake and then inserted some of the garnishes into the edge next to the lines.

Once it was complete, I transferred it to a cake stand until it was time for dessert. It was a big hit among everyone who tried it. I loved the way that all of the flavours and textures worked really well together to create a superb dessert that I definitely want to try again.

I would love to share the recipe for this entremet with you all but as it isn't my recipe I'm not going to share it without permission but I strongly encourage everyone to get their hands on this book if they are interested in patisserie. I have cooked a few things from it and they have all been easy to follow and the final product is always great. Most of the recipes require some specialist ingredients but I still believe that its worth it.

Thanks for reading!