The perfect Christmas dessert

Name: The perfect Christmas dessert
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 180 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Switzerland
Ingredients: 75 g whole egg; 19 g granulated sugar; 90 g couverture | Maracaibo 65 %; 2 sheets of gelatine leaf; 2 drops of spruce needle oil; 135 g full cream | whipped; 6 chocolate sponge discs; 90 g blueberries; 10 g sour cherry paste; 14 g water

Spruce needle mousse with fruit jelly

We’vealready shown you one recipe usingspruce needle oil, and now we’ve got a second one for you! Here’s the perfect Christmas dessert! This time, it’s a spruce needle patisserie consisting of dark chocolate and spruce needle mousse withblueberry and sour cherry jelly, served on a moist chocolate sponge. To give the patisserie a truly festive finish, we’ve even got two ideas to inspire you this time. One is very simple, usingVelvet Sprayand a touch ofgold dust, and the other is coated in ganache and Velvet Spray with a border ofgold leaf. We hope you enjoy making it!

Key figures

Quantity:6 pieces

Freezing time: At least 2 hours

Difficulty: Easy

Shelflife: 5 days

Ingredients

Whole egg		75 g
granulated sugar		12 g
Couverture \| Maracaibo 65%		90 g
Sheet gelatine		1 sheet
Spruce needle oil		2 drops
Double cream \| whipped		135 g
Chocolate sponge slice		6 pieces

Jelly

Blueberries	90 g
Sour cherry paste	10 g
Water	14 g
Granulated sugar	7 g
Sheet gelatine	1 sheet

Manufacture

Soak the gelatine in cold water.

Now whisk the whole egg together with the granulated sugar. Meanwhile, you can start carefully melting the couverture over a bain-marie. As soon as the whole egg is nice and frothy and has increased significantly in volume, you can stir in the warm, liquidcouvertureand add the soaked and squeezed-out gelatine straight away. The gelatine will only dissolve whilst the mixture is still nice and warm. If the mixture has already cooled down too much and you end up with a large lump of gelatine, you can gently reheat it over a bain-marie until it has dissolved.

Nowaddthespruce needle oil. This is a highly concentrated flavouring oil, so you should be careful with the amount you use. Stir the oil in well, then fold the whipped double cream into the mixture. If it’s not intense enough for your taste, feel free to adjust it a little. However, you should only do this drop by drop.

Put the mixture into apiping bagand fill the mould with the mousse to just below the rim of thesilicone mould. Cut out chocolate sponge bases with adiameter of 6.5 cmand press one base into each of the mousse cups. Now place the wholemouldin the freezer for at least 2 hours. However, we recommend leaving them in the freezer overnight, as this makes it much easier to remove the mousse tartlets from thesilicone mouldand ensures the surface is really nice and smooth. Once the mousse is in the freezer, you can move on to making the jelly.

To make the jelly, you’ll need to soak the gelatine in cold water again first.

Put the remaining ingredients into a small saucepan and bring the mixture to the boil briefly. Then leave it to simmer on a medium heat for a few minutes. Depending on how reduced and soft you want the blueberries to be, you can shorten or lengthen the simmering time. Once you’re happy with the result, squeeze out the excess water from the soaked gelatine and stir it into the jelly. Finally, pour the mixture into ahemispherical silicone mouldwith a diameter of 3 cm and freeze it as well. You can pipette the remaining jelly into a small piping bag and leave it at room temperature.

Once the tartlets and the jelly are completely frozen, you can take them out of the freezer and assemble them.

Remove just two tartlets from the mould at a time, place them on arotating cake stand(ideally lined with baking paper beforehand) and spray them withVelvet Spray. If you place the spray can in lukewarm water for about 2–3 minutes before use, you’ll get a much finer mist and the chance of the nozzle becoming blocked is very low.

Once all the tartlets have been sprayed evenly, you can now move on to the next step.

Option 1

Fill the hole in the mousse tartlet with blueberry jelly, stopping just below the rim, and then carefully place a half-sphere of jelly on top. Finally, you can spray a littlegold sprayover it and then arrange the tartlet attractively.

Option 2

You can now coat one half of the sprayed tartlet with amirror glazeor a dark ganache anddecoratethe ‘seam’ withgold leaf. This method gives you a particularly elegant and festive decoration. Then proceed in exactly the same way as for Variation 1. Fill the hole with jelly and then place the jelly hemisphere on top.

Storage & Shelf life

When packed in acake box, the patisserie will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Info

You really must give this recipe a go – it’s absolutely delicious and just that little bit more special! We’d also be delighted if you shared your results with us and followed us on Instagram. Please feel free to leave a like and a comment too!

Many thanks

Your miniSchoggi team