Christmas Celebration

Christmas evening was spent at a relative's wedding dinner. Therefore, my family decided to have our usual Christmas celebration on Boxing Day instead. What made the dinner worth waiting for was the Black Truffles. After our White Truffles dinner last month, we decided to have Black Truffles for our Christmas celebration since it was in season. The truffles were sponsored by my younger sister, while my elder sister prepared the food for us. My elder sister is very resourceful. She managed to source for reasonably good black truffles for our dinner.

As usual, I will prepare the dessert. For this special dinner, I made Concorde Dessert. The recipe was extracted from Daily Delicious. My younger sister also ordered some ice-cream from the same source. Therefore, we had two desserts!

After trying both the white truffles and black truffles, I can understand why white truffles cost more. The smell and flavour is more intense for white truffles, compared to black. A small amount of white is enough to provide the taste and flavouring. Black truffles cost about a third of white truffles. Personally, I prefer white truffles!

Here's recollecting what we had.

Salad

Black Truffle Pasta with Scallops (the most classic way to have truffles!)

Concorde Dessert

Classic Truffle - Sabayon semifreddo and gianduja ice cream coated with crushed hazelnuts and cocoa beans

Kids' Bomb - Gianduja ice cream with a cream core (for the kids of course!)

The Concorde cake was very nice. I made 14 cups (thanks to Grace for giving me the lovely cups), just enough for my whole family. I made the meringue smaller, even though I doubled the recipe. There were leftovers for my chocolate meringues. This recipe used raw eggs for the mousse. The mousse was very stable, ie. it was very easy to manage and wasn't the runny type.

Recipe for Concorde Dessert, extracted from Daily Delicious

(Makes 14 cups)

Chocolate meringue

240g Egg whites

200g Icing sugar

60g Cocoa powder

200g Fine sugar

Chocolate mousse

250g Dark chocolate (70%)

150g Unsalted butter (soft)

4 Egg yolks

80g Icing sugar

180g Egg whites

20g Fine sugar

Icing sugar for sprinkle over the top of the Concordes

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 120°C

2. Line the baking trays with silicone baking mat.

3. Sift the cocoa powder with the icing sugar, set aside.

4. Whip the egg whites until soft peaks formed, gradually add the granulated sugar and whip until stiff peaks formed.

5. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa into the meringue, fold lightly until fully combined.

6. Put the batter into the piping bag fitted with 1 cm piping nozzle.

7. Pipe the meringue into approximately 45 disks (3 inches in diameter), then pipe the rest of the meringue into long strips.

8. Bake for 2 hours, or until the meringue dry, turn off the oven and rest the meringue in the oven for 1 hour. (After 30mins, leave the oven door ajar for 5mins to release the steam. Repeat this once again after one hour)

9. After taking the meringue out of the oven, let cool completely before proceeding to the next step.
(Note from dailydelicious: you can bake the meringue and keep it in the airtight container for 2-3 days at room temperature. For me, I baked the day before.)

Making the chocolate mousse:

1. Melt the chocolate and the butter in the microwave. Be careful not to overheat the chocolates. Stir together to combine.

2. Pour the egg yolks (one at a time) into the chocolate mixture, stir to combine after each addition. Sift the icing sugar into the chocolate mixture, stir to combine.

3. Whip the egg whites until soft peaks formed, gradually add the granulated sugar and whip until stiff peaks formed.

4. Fold the meringue into the chocolate mixture, 1/3 of the meringue at a time, fold lightly until combined.

Assemble:

1. Trim the sides of the meringue to ensure that it can fit into the cups.

2. Scoop the chocolate mousse to fill the meringue.

3. Then repeat #1 and 2.

4. Cut the meringue strips into small pieces, and decorate the top with the strips.

5. Sprinkle the icing sugar over the cake. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Ensure that they are stored in air-tight container in the refrigerate as chocolates absorb surrounding odours.

This is my entry for the Christmas Giveaway hosted by Swee San of The Sweet Spot and I'm submitting this post to the Aspiring Bakers #2 too!