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Nina Métayer, a barely 30 year-old pastry chef now in charge of dessert creations from the world over at Café Poushkine, is much more than a mere br…
Nina Métayer, a barely 30 year-old pastry chef now in charge of dessert creations from the world over at Café Poushkine, is much more than a mere brand ambassador, and perfectly embodies the authentic, dynamic and feminine values of Pink Lady®. For Valentine’s Day 2019, Pink Lady® has imagined a delicate dessert for a memorable romantic evening. This close collaboration between the chef and Pink Lady® highlights the technical work carried out on a daily basis by the men and women who make Pink Lady® an exceptional apple.
Ingredients
For the whipped vanilla ganache
- 1 g salt
- 1 vanilla pod
- 1 gelatine sheets
- 56 g white chocolate
- 250 g whipping cream
Preparing the Pink Lady® apples
- 4 Pink Lady® apples
- The juice of 1 lemon
For the apple syrup
- 100 g sugar
- The juice of 1 lemon
- 1L of water
- The peelings of 4 Pink Lady® apples
For the oven-roasted apples
- 525 g sugar
- 250 g of apple syrup
- 10 green cardamom seeds
For the apple compote
- 1 vanilla pod
- 20 g sugar
- 1 g ground cardamom
- The juice of 1 lemon
- of apple syrup
- 300 g of apples (including the trimmings)
For the hazelnut biscuit
- 60 g sugar
- 25 g butter
- 60 g ground hazelnuts
- 150 g egg whites
- 60 g ground almonds
- 60 g icing sugar
For the vanilla shortbread
- 140 g flour
- 2 g salt
- 1 vanilla pod
- 35 g sugar
- 120 g butter
- 60 g ground almonds
For the Agar topping
- 50 g sugar
- 500 g of apple syrup
- 4 g of agar-agar
Finishes
- 100 g white chocolate
- 50 g of topping
Stages
For the whipped vanilla ganache
Preparing the Pink Lady® apples
For the apple syrup
For the oven-roasted apples
For the apple compote
For the hazelnut biscuit
For the vanilla shortbread
For the Agar topping
Finishes
- Rehydrate the gelatine in icy water for 10 minutes, then drain it off.
- Scrape out the vanilla seeds.
- Bring the first batch of whipping cream and the vanilla seeds to boil, add the gelatine, the salt, and pour onto the white chocolate.
- Mix well, and add the second batch of cold whipping cream. Cover with cling film in direct contact and leave in the refrigerator for 5 hours.
- Peel the apples and keep the peelings.
- Take 3 of the apples, and cut out 2 pretty halves on each side of the core.
- Use the fourth apple to make 18 small apple balls with a Parisienne scoop, and plunge them into the lemon juice. Keep all the peelings in order to make the compote.
- Bring the water and sugar to boil, plunge the apple peelings and cores into the mixture, and add the lemon juice.
- Cover and leave to infuse for around 2 hours, then strain.
- Make a dry caramel with the sugar, while letting the apple syrup cool down.
- Deglaze the caramel with the lukewarm syrup.
- Pour an about 0,5 cm layer of liquid caramel into a dish.
- Place the apple halves in the dish with the caramel.
- Gently grind the cardamom seeds and add them to the caramel.
- Cover the dish with aluminium foil and cook for 40 minutes at 180ºC.
- Remove the cardamom seeds.
- Use the trimmings from the apple halves, roughly chop them and cook them along with all the other ingredients over low heat, stir regularly.
- Remove the cardamom seeds, adjust the texture by adding apple syrup until the texture is smooth enough.
- Sift the sugar and ground nuts.
- Whisk the egg whites with an electric mixer and stiffen with the sugar.
- Gently add the ground nuts and icing sugar using a rubber spatula, then mix with the melted butter.
- Spread finely on a baking sheet, letting the mixture slightly lose volume, and bake for 8 minutes at 180ºC.
- Cut out circles 5 cm in diameter.
- Mix the softened butter with the flour, sugar, vanilla and salt, then add the ground almonds.
- Spread a 2.5 cm layer of the mixture between two baking sheets.
- Let it set, then cut out 5 cm diameter circles.
- Place them on a baking sheet and bake for 17 minutes at 160ºC.
- Mix the dry sugar and agar-agar, heat the apple syrup and add the sugar and agar mixture.
- Boil for 1 minute.
- Make small heart stencils, and spread a thin layer of warm melted chocolate by superimposing a baking sheet and the heart stencil.
- Remove the stencil and start again to obtain 3 hearts per dessert.
- Drain the small apple balls macerated in the lemon juice and roll them in the apple coating.
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