Chocolate Rooibos Mousse with Orange Marmalade and Cookie Crumb

Credit: Flickr / Mary.Do

Top off your dessert with as much or as little marmalade as you like

Gourmet Warehouse’s 2012 Chocolate Challenge Chocolate Challenge winner produced a decadent chocolate mousse flavoured with rooibos tea and orange marmalade

Congratulations to Vancouver’s Lauren Arsenault, whose recipe for Chocolate Rooibos Mousse with Orange Marmalade & Cookie Crumb earned her first place in the recent Gourmet Warehouse 2012 Chocolate Challenge.

Ingredients

Mousse

• 1-⅓ cups 35% M.F. cream
• 2 Tbsp. honey
• 1 Tbsp. + 2 tsp. Rooibos tea
• 14 oz. 70% cocoa Saint‐Domingue chocolate
• 1-¾ cups 35% M.F. cream, whipped to soft peaks

Chocolate Génoise

• 6 whole eggs (at room temperature)
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ cup cake flour
• 1 Tbsp. Cacao Barry “Plein Arome” cocoa
• ¼ cup melted butter

Chocolate Shortbread (for Crumb)

• ½ cup sugar
• ½ lb. butter (room temperature)
• 1 tsp. salt
• ¼ cup Cacao Barry “Extra Brute” cocoa
• 1 cup all-purpose flour

Rooibos Simple Syrup

• ⅔ cup water
• ⅔ cup sugar
• 1 Tbsp. Rooibos tea

Orange Marmalade

• 2 large navel oranges (cut into 1-inch squares)
• 1 Tbsp. water
• ¾ cup sugar
• 4 tsp. minced ginger

Chantilly

• 1 cup 35% M.F. cream
• 1 Tbsp. icing sugar, sifted

Instructions

1. Mousse: Infuse cream over low heat with tea and honey (about 10 minutes). Cool until warm. Melt chocolate in top of double boiler. Let cool until warm. Gently combine cream and chocolate and let cool to room temperature. Gently fold whipped cream in thirds into the ganache.

2. Chocolate Génoise: Warm eggs and sugar in top of a double boiler. Whip until ribbon stage. Sift cake flour and cocoa together. Fold dry ingredients into wet in stages until fully incorporated. Fold in melted butter.

3. Chocolate Shortbread (Crumb): Cream together sugar, butter and salt. Sift cocoa and flour together and combine with the butter mixture. Roll out and bake at 350°F for about 12 minutes. Break into crumbs.

4. Rooibos Simple Syrup: Combine ingredients in a pot and simmer until sugar is dissolved and tea is fully infused (about 10 minutes). Leave tea bags in syrup until ready to use.

5. Orange Marmalade: Combine ingredients in a pot and boil for about 20 minutes or until pith is not bitter. Purée half the marmalade; reserve the rest.

6. Chantilly:

1. Whip cream to soft peaks. Add sugar and whip until medium peaks form.
2. Line a baking pan with parchment.
3. Using a 6-inch cake ring (3 inches high), cut out 2 disks of chocolate génoise.
4. Place cake ring on the prepared pan and put 1 disk of génoise in the base.
5. Generously brush with rooibos syrup.
6. Top génoise with a generous mound of puréed marmalade and spread evenly.
7. Pour chocolate mousse over top until it reaches halfway.
8. Top with other disk of génoise and press down gently and evenly.
9. Repeat layers of marmalade and mousse.
10. Level off mousse with palette knife and chill until set (overnight).
11. Cut into 8 wedges. Serve each wedge topped with a small scoop of reserved marmalade.
12. Place a small mound of chocolate shortbread crumbs next to it.
13. Add a quenelle of Chantilly.
14. Serve at room temperature.

Serves 8.

Originally published in TVW. For daily programming updates and on-screen Entertainment news, subscribe to the free TVW e-newsletters, or purchase a subscription to the weekly magazine.