Use a quality butter puff pastry for this recipe. Alternatively, serve the mousse alone with the mandarins and a spoonful of whipped cream.
Ingredients
Jaffa mousse
Mandarins in syrup
Method
Main
1.For jaffa mousse, melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl placed over simmering water. Add butter and rind, stir until melted and combined. Whisk eggwhites until soft peaks form, add sugar, whisk until stiff peaks form. Stir yolks into chocolate mixture, fold through eggwhites, then cream. Cover and refrigerate until chilled (2 hours).
2.Meanwhile, preheat oven to 200C. Roll pastry to a 5mm-thick square, then cut into 9 9cm squares. Place on a tray lined with baking paper and bake until puffed (5-7 minutes), reduce oven to 150C, bake until deep golden (4-5 minutes). Remove from oven, halve horizontally, place cut side up on trays and bake until dried (4-5 minutes). Set aside to cool.
3.Meanwhile, for mandarins in syrup, thickly slice half the mandarins and segment remaining mandarins. Combine sugar and 80ml water in a saucepan. Bring to the simmer over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar, then cook until mixture reaches 118C on a sugar thermometer (5-10 minutes). Add mandarins, rind and juice, cook over low heat until tender (3-5 minutes). Remove from heat, set aside to cool, refrigerate until chilled (1 hour).
4.Place bottom half of each pastry square on a serving plate. Spoon mousse on top, gently spreading over pastry, top with remaining pastry half and candied mandarin. Dust with cocoa and serve immediately.
Note We prefer to use Carême puff pastry, which comes in pre-rolled 375gm sheets.
Notes
