Proud to be a Chef finalist Tess Wilson, of Corowa, was delighted to win the competition's best sweet dish category with her caramelised white chocolate and coffee mousse with mandarin sorbet.
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"It was a very nerve-racking experience, the whole cook-off, and I didn't think I'd done all that well but, yeah, I came out with the best sweet, so that was pretty exciting," she said.
Food Service News described the dish as a circular sponge filled with coffee crème patisserie and fresh mandarin segments, topped with a lace biscuit drizzled with mandarin sorbet and garnished with several dollops of mandarin puree.
One of the competition's mentors, Matilda's Scott Pickett praised Wilson's efforts.
"It was beautiful to eat," he told Food Service News.
"The sponge was light and delicate and the combination of the sweet filling with the tart flavour of the mandarin created a lovely contrast."
MORE RECIPES:
Caramelised white chocolate and coffee mousse with Mandarin Sorbet
Serves 2
Preparation time 30 minutes
Cooking time 2 hours
Ingredients
Mandarin Sorbet
1000g mandarin puree
500g water
120g glucose
250g sugar
48g dextrose
6g stabiliser
Caramelised white chocolate and coffee mousse
50g sugar
30g yolks
100g anchor cream
6 tsp instant coffee
250g white chocolate
5g gelatine
200g thickened cream, whipped
Sponge
45g sugar
90g whites
45g sugar
90g yolks
20g gf flour
20g starch
40g butter, melted
Red Coral
80g water
30g oil
10g flour
Red colouring by eye
Mandarin segments
Method
Caramelised white chocolate and coffee mousse
Caramelise the white chocolate in the oven at 160 degrees on a slipmat for 15 minutes.
Boil the coffee and cream, add the gelatin and caramelised chocolate.
Cook the sugar and water to 118 degrees and whisk into the egg yolks to make a pate a bombe.
Fold together and let cool.
Once cool, add the whipped cream.
Mandarin Sorbet
Heat the water glucose and half of the sugar to 40 degrees.
Add the dextrose, stabiliser and remaining sugar and heat to 85 degrees.
Pour over the mandarin puree and bamix well.
Ensure that the sorbet mix is cooled before churning.
Coral
Mix all the ingredients together well and pour a spoonful onto a non stick frying pan.
Let the mixture cook on low heat until all the bubbles disappear, then carefully remove from the pan and drain the coral on paper towel.
Sponge
Whisk sugar and whites together until firm peak.
Whisk sugar and yolks together until thick.
Sift in flour and starch and fold through.
Fold through butter.
Bake for 15 minutes at 160 degrees.
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