Chocolate, cocoa, and citrus L’éveil cake by Nina Métayer

Restless, versatile and perfectionist, Nina Métayer is one of the great idols of the new French pastry. Despite her youth, she already has an intense career that has led her to work both in Michelin-starred restaurants (Le Meurice, under Camille Lesecq, Le Raphäel, under chef Amandine Chaignot, or Jean-François Piège’s Le Grand Restaurant) and in the most demanding workshops (Café Pouchkine). A job that soon caught the attention of everyone in the trade, thanks also to her outstanding participation in the 2015 edition of the television competition Qui sera le prochain grand pâtissier. This fame led her to be recognized with two awards for Best Pastry Chef of the year, the first awarded in 2016 by Le Chef, and the second delivered in 2017 by the Gault et Millau guide. Both awards came when she had not yet turned 30 years old.
Métayer currently combines consulting and training with the launch of an online store, Délicatesserie, in which she surprises with very careful confections closely linked to the holidays. Her intention is to create new proposals and at the same time pay tribute to timeless classics, revisiting them with personality, precision and elegance. In addition, her creations are committed to the freshness of the ingredients, to rebalancing the recipes (hence her preference for brown sugar), and to making the most of them.

In this personal creation, the French chef surprises us once again with an artistic finish of enveloping shapes. Regarding the combination of flavors, the cake openly relies on chocolate and cocoa, entering in combination with an interesting kumquat and kalamansi marmalade.

L’éveil cake

Chocolate and cocoa mousse

150 g 66% dark couverture
130 g milk
120 g liquid cream (1)
674 g liquid cream (2)
3 or egg yolks
40 g cocoa (deZaan True Gold)
40 g brown sugar

Heat the first cream and the milk, add the cocoa powder and mix well with the hand mixer. Pour over the mixture of yolks and brown sugar. Place in a saucepan and cook stirring non-stop until reaching 82ºC. Pour over the previously melted chocolate. Add the second quantity of the whipped cream.

Kumquat and kalamansi marmalade

100 g kumquat (Bachès)
100 g kalamansi (Bachès)
100 g mikan mandarin (Bachès)
20 g bergamot skin
50 g brown sugar

With a peeler, obtain the bergamot skins. Blanch the kumquats, kalamansi, tangerines, and bergamot skins three times. Reserve the water from the last cooking and add the sugar. Mix everything, ensuring that there are nice pieces of the fruit. Add a little cooking water if necessary.

Cocoa grué praline

250 g hazelnuts
125 g sugar
40 g water
5 g fleur de sel
100 g cocoa grué
35 g grapeseed oil

Toast the hazelnuts at 140ºC for 50 minutes. Cook the sugar and water until you get a caramel at 180ºC and let it cool. Mix everything and process for 2 minutes to obtain the praline, then add the oil. Finish by adding the grué and salt. Mix another 30 seconds and reserve.

Cocoa cake

196 g 50% almond paste
19 g cocoa powder (deZaan Rich Terracotta)
1 g salt
4 or eggs
13 g flour
22 g potato starch
72 g butter

Mix the almond paste with 1/3 of the eggs with a blender. Whisk the rest of the eggs and the almond paste mixture in a blender. Melt the butter and add it carefully to the previous mixture. Sift the powders and add them carefully to the preparation. Cook for 8 minutes at 180ºC. Check that it is cooked and adjust cooking if necessary.

Pate sucrée

138 g butter
88 g powdered sugar
28 g ground almond
0,5 g salt
1 u egg
1 g vanilla
200 g T80 flour
30 g cocoa powder (deZaan True Gold)

Mix in the butter, icing sugar, powdered almonds, salt, vanilla and flour. Add the egg. Once the dough is homogeneous, reserve cold. Roll out to 4mm thick and freeze. Cut into a flower shape and cook at 150ºC for 35 minutes.

Cocoa glaze

135 g water
320 g brown sugar
90 g cocoa powder (deZaan True Dark)
235 g liquid cream
6,5 u gelatin sheets
35 g vanihoneylla
120 g glucose

In a saucepan, bring the water, glucose and sugar to a boil. Add the sifted cocoa powder and mix. In another saucepan, boil the cream with the honey and add to the syrup. Bring everything back to a boil and then add the gelatin. Mix and reserve overnight in the fridge.

Cocoa ganache

150 g liquid cream
0,3 g salt
1,5 u gelatin sheets
63 g white chocolate
150 g liquid cream
20 g cocoa powder (deZaan Crimson Red)

Bring the first quantity of cream to a boil with the cocoa powder. Mix with a hand mixer and add the gelatin. Pour over the white chocolate. Mix with a spatula and add the second quantity of cream. Mix with a hand mixer, avoiding incorporating air bubbles. Refrigerate overnight.

Dark spray

350 g cocoa butter
350 g dark chocolate

Melt the cocoa butter, pour over the dark chocolate, and add coloring if necessary. Mix and reserve.

Chocolate decoration

Temper the chocolate respecting the temperature curves: melt the chocolate at 55ºC, lower it to 28ºC with the help of a cold bain marie, and raise the temperature to 30-31ºC with another hot bain marie. On a rhodoïd, make the decorations with the tip of the knife. Curve the rhodoïd to give the shape of the desired decoration. Let the chocolate crystallize.