Red Berry Chocolate Entremet
Entremets are one of the desserts that I hold most dear to my heart for various reasons, but the main one is the fact that I’ve started baking due to an entremet more than 14 years ago. It was one entremet recipe that pushed me to challenge myself, it was that long recipe that made me fall in love with pastry and made me see it beyond the recipe through its techniques and interactions between ingredients. It was a pivotal moment for me. I started baking in a time when information on this was scarce so that entremet blew my mind with its complexity. There were so many questions I had once I finished making it! And I wanted to know the answer to all of them! So I pursued pastry as a career and both as a hobby.
This particular recipe was created starting from a friend’s recipe of flourless chocolate cake, topped with freshly whipped cream and berries. The cake itself is more like a flourless souffle and less like a cake, so this recipe is surely gluten free. I decided I would take full advantage of the cake itself so two layers of flourless sponge cake felt just what the cake needed. Having had flourless cakes before, I know they are incredibly tasty, but lack a certain consistency. So I thought that doubling the layers would fix that. And it actually did – I love the insert and its consistency.
The Layers Of This Red Berry Chocolate Entremet Are:
- flourless sponge cake
- red berries marmalade
- dark chocolate mousse
- dark red mirror glaze
The decor is the most simple of the decors – strawberries. Beauty lies in simplicity, don’t you think?
Tips And Tricks For Making This Red Berry Chocolate Entremet
- You can make your own red berry puree at home by cooking red berries with 10% sugar. Once cooked, blend the mix well then pass through a sieve to remove the seeds. Use right away or freeze for later use.
- You can make only one layer of sponge by baking the batter in one cake ring of 16cm diameter, but the slice of the cake will look slightly different. Just as delicious though!
- The best temperature to work the glaze at is between 34 and 40C. The colder the cake, the warmer the glaze!
Red Berry Chocolate Entremet
Ingredients
Flourless sponge cake:
- 66 g dark chocolate (75% cocoa)
- 66 g butter
- 40 g egg yolks
- 33 g white granulated sugar A
- 60 g egg white
- 33 g white granulated sugar B
- 13 g cocoa powder
- 1 g salt
Red berry compote:
- 150 g red berries (frozen)
- 100 g red berry puree
- 50 g white granulated sugar
- 5 g pectin NH
- 1 g citric acid
Dark chocolate mousse:
- 170 g milk
- 80 g egg yolks
- 30 g white granulated sugar
- 3 g gelatin + 18g water
- 180 g dark chocolate 75%
- 250 g heavy cream (whipped)
Dark red mirror glaze:
- 75 g water
- 150 g white granulated sugar
- 150 g glucose syrup
- 10 g gelatin + 60g water
- 100 g sweetened condensed milk
- 150 g dark chocolate (no more than 60%)
- Red food coloring
Instructions
Flourless sponge cake
- Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave or over a double boiler. Place aside.
- Mix the egg yolks with the white sugar A until light and pale.
- Whip the egg whites with the sugar B until foamy and medium peaks form.
- Combine the melted chocolate and butter with the egg yolk foam, then fold in the meringue, also adding the cocoa powder and salt as you fold.
- Split the batter into 2 equal portions and pour into 2 cake rings of 16cm diameter.
- Bake in the preheated oven at 180°C for 12-14 minutes or until slightly set. It will rise a lot, but also deflate quite a lot.
- Let the sponge cakes cool down completely.
Red berry marmalade
- Combine the berries with the berry puree in a pot and heat up to 40C.
- Separately, mix the sugar with the pectin then add it over the warm berries. Bring to a boil and cook for 30 seconds.
- Remove from heat and stir in the pectin.
- Cool down for 10 minutes.
- Build your insert by placing one sponge cake in a cake ring of 16cm diameter. Pour the marmalade on top then place the second sponge cake and press slightly. Freeze the insert for at least 2 hours.
Dark chocolate mousse
- Cook a creme anglaise like so: heat up the milk. Separately, mix the egg yolk with the sugar. Pour the hot milk steadily over the egg yolk, then return the mixture on low heat and cook until it reaches 82C.
- Remove from heat, stir in the bloomed gelatin (gelatin and water, mixed together), then pour over the chocolate.
- Let it rest for 2 minutes then blend until the mixture looks smooth and shiny.
- Cool down to 30C then fold in the whipped cream.
- To assemble the cake:
- Prepare a 18cm diameter cake ring of 6cm height by lining it with an acetate strip.
- Pour the mousse into the mould just about 3/4 then remove the insert from its mould and drop it into the center of the mousse. Press gently to level it.
- Freeze the cake for at least 6 hours, preferably over night.
Mirror glaze
- Mix the chocolate with the condensed milk in a jug.
- Combine the water, sugar and glucose in a pot and bring to 103C.
- Take aside then add the bloomed gelatin.
- Pour over the chocolate. Depending on the shade of red you want, you may use a mix of white and dark chocolate. The point is to darken the red, that’s what the dark chocolate is for in the recipe.
- Blend well, adding enough red food coloring to obtain the color you wish for.
- Chill in the fridge for 8 hours then reheat and bring to 34-36C – working temperature.
- Take the cake from the freezer. Pour the glaze evenly over it. Remove the excess glaze.
- Decorate as you wish!