Sweet Pastry Recipe:

Sieve the flour and cocoa powder together

Rub in the butter

Dissolve the sugar in the whole beaten egg

Blend both sets of ingredients together

Refrigerator for 1 hour

Roll into 5cm flan rings

Bake blind at 180’C for 12 to 15 minutes

Chocolate Sponge:

Preheat oven to 180’C

Prepare a 60 x 40 mm baking tray – line with parchment paper

Whisk egg whites and sugar to a stiff meringue

Fold in egg yolks

Sieve the cocoa powder onto the meringue, fold in gently

Spread onto prepared parchment paper

Cook approx. 10 minutes

Chocolate Mousse:

Place the sugar into a saucepan and pour enough water over to saturate the sugar and then boil to 121°c.

Whisk the eggs and egg yolks to a thick sabayon pour on the boiling sugar and whisk until the mixture is cold.

Melt the chocolate and fold through the sabayon

Fold through the whipped cream

Freeze in a half sphere dome mould

Poached Pears spiced with Vanilla Cardamom and Black Pepper:

Half fill a saucepan with water bigger enough to hold the full ingredients

Add the sugar, lemon juice and spices

Bring to the boil to dissolved the sugar and infuse the spices

Add peeled pears

Simmer for approximately 15 to 20 minutes until the pears are soft

Cool

Dice the pears

Pour over the cooking syrup and reduce to create a thicker serving syrup to coat the diced pears

Basic Chocolate Ganache:

Boil the cream

Cool to 80’C

Pour onto weighed dark chocolate

Stir well to create a smooth emulsion

Basic Chocolate Glaze:

Place both ingredients into a plastic bowl

Heat in a microwave 1 minute on full powder

Stir well to create a smooth emulsion

Pour over frozen half sphere mousses to create a seal of shiny glaze