Dark Chocolate, Pepperberry S’mores

by Audrey Allard

Audrey Allard one of the original chefs from Laura at Pt Leo Estate and Lune Croissanterie found herself opening up a small pastry box business during lockdown 2.0. Her menu changes weekly and sells out just as fast. "I created the Pepperberry S’mores to go into one of my pastry boxes a few weeks ago, a lot of my customers praise me on my S’mores, French Crullers and Apple Fritters as it’s hard to find places in Australia that make them as good as in Canada/USA. Due to the current restrictions, working abroad is out of the question so a lot of trail and error has come into play. 

That just goes to show, you don’t always have to travel overseas to replicate an international classic. Sometimes putting your own personal touches on a dish can make them just as special.”

Ingredients

Method

Pastry
80g diced butter
150g bakers flour
120g caster sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
1 small egg

Marshmallow 
8g powered gelatine 
2 tbsp cold water
90g whites
230g sugar
100g water (just enough to cover sugar)
1tsp ground “Mabu Mabu" pepperberry
1tsp corn flour

Ganache
450ml cream
450g Ecuador 70% Buttons
1 pinch salt



Method


Pastry
1. Using a paddle attachment on a stand mixer, mix your diced butter and bakers flour. Combine until sand like texture and set aside. If making a 1x recipe whip your eggs, sugar and vanilla by hand with a whisk (1x recipe is small enough to manage by hand) mix until fluffy then pour into your flour mixture, mix until just combined. 

2. Turn your pastry onto a sheet of baking paper that fits your 30cmx15cm baking trey and roll your pastry to cover the base and slightly up the sides. Wrap your lined trey and refrigerate for 2 hours. 

3.. To bake, preheat your oven to 170 degrees celsius fan forced and bake for 15-20 minutes or until pastry is nice and golden, set aside.

Marshmallow
1. Firstly dissolve your powdered gelatine in two tablespoons of cold water, stirring until smooth and set aside. 

2. Pop your sugar and 100g of water on high heat, you want to make sure the water is covering all of the sugar. In the mean time, pop your egg whites into a mixing bowl and start whisking on a low speed. Bring your syrup up to 140 degrees celsius, add your pepperberry at about 120 degrees celsius. Avoid stirring as this may cause your sugar to crystallise. 

3. Turn your stand mixer up to high and carefully pour your syrup into your whites (you whites should be at stiff peak stage by the time your syrup is added)

4. Whilst your mixer is mixing on high speed, add your gelatine/water mixture. The heat from your sugar syrup that you have just added will melt your gelatine mixture as it mixes. Mix on high for about five minutes and then pour into a 15cmx 30cm trey (you want your marshmallow slab to be about 3cm thick, if you have excess marshmallow pop into a container and cover in a 50/50 icing sugar cornflour mixture for snacks) lined with glad wrap and refrigerate until firm. 

5. Once your base is baked and cooled, you can make your ganache. Start by placing your chocolate and salt into a metal bowl over a pot of simmering water. 

Ganache
1. In another pot, heat your cream up to a simmer. Add your cream to your melted chocolate in three stages, stirring each time to avoid your ganache from splitting.

2. Pour ganache over the top of your pastry base and place into the fridge until set. (Tip- if your ganache splits, you can bring back by mixing with a stick blender)

To assemble
1. Trim the edges of your chocolate slab with a warm knife to create beautiful sharp edges and set aside. Pull out your marshmallow and sprinkle I tsp of cornflour over the top, this will make the marshmallow easier to handle it is also fine to blowtorch. 

2. Trim the edges of your marshmallow, I wet my knife with hot water to stop the marshmallow from sticking (it should lay flush to your ganache slab) and peal the glad wrap off the bottom. 

3. Using a large palate knife, elevate your marshmallow and blowtorch the top (corn flour side) and sides and and place on top of your chocolate slab.


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