Charlotte au Chocolat avec Orange: Your Grand Finale
How to Bring French Flavors To The Festive Table
The Holiday Season is when many home cooks batten down the hatches and get down to the serious business of preparing and serving dishes which have been passed on from one generation to the next. In some households, the cooks in the family also see it as an opportunity to try something new and exciting, something to add extra flavor to the Christmas or New Year feast.
This year, we at PORTORO Interior are sharing recipes from the family of our founder, Nathalie Kuepfer Henares, which will bring an elegant yet homey nuance to the Holiday feast. The three recipes chosen for this series of posts can be served together or featured individually as a delectable addition or change to your annual Noche Buena fare.
Charlotte au Chocolat avec Orange (Chocolate Charlotte with Orange Coulis)
No Holiday meal is ever complete without a magnificent dessert and our decadent Chocolate Charlotte ticks all the boxes. With its heavenly mixture of chocolate, Armagnac, and biscuit overlaid with the brilliant tang of bitter orange, it is a most memorable finale to the feast.
Serves 6
Ingredients
For the chocolate mousse:
250 g of milk chocolate
250 g of dark chocolate
Water
6 eggs
100 g icing sugar
100 g butter
Place the chocolates in a bowl within a bain-marie. Pour in enough water to cover half of the chocolate. Heat through whilst stirring constantly until the chocolates have liquefied. Remove from heat.
Add the butter and icing sugar to the molten mixture and combine until well-amalgamated. Allow to cool to room temperature.
Separate the egg whites from the egg yolks. Whisk the yolks into the cooled chocolate mixture. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and carefully fold into the chocolate mixture.
Refrigerate until ready to use.
For the Charlotte:
Ladyfingers or savoiardi
¼ cup Armagnac
Prepared chocolate mousse
¼ cup warm water
Prepare a mold or springform cake tin.
Combine the Armagnac and water in a shallow dish and quickly dip the ladyfingers into it.
Arrange the dipped ladyfingers on the bottom and sides of the prepared tin, ensuring that there are no spaces through which the mousse may ooze out.
Spoon the mousse onto the ladyfingers, then layer with additional ladyfingers. Repeat the process until you have used up both biscuits and mousse. Cover with either cling film or wax paper. Freeze or refrigerate overnight.
For the orange coulis:
5 tablespoons bitter orange marmalade
200mL fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons grenadine syrup
1 orange
Peel and julienne the orange; set aside.
In a saucepan over medium-low heat, bring the orange juice and grenadine to a boil.
Pour the resulting sauce through a fine-meshed sieve and return to the pot. Add the marmalade and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Lower the heat and add the julienned orange. Remove from heat and cool for around five minutes before drizzling onto the unmolded charlotte.
Our Grapefruit Service Plate is the perfect backdrop for our Orange-topped Charlotte.
Consider PORTORO Interior’s Christmas Collection to set a perfectly luxurious Holiday table.
