Beet Sorbet, Toasted Oats, Chocolate and Coffee Crumbles, Sheep’s Milk Yogurt, Chocolate, and Mandarin Purée

METHOD:

For the Soft Chocolate:
Set chocolate in a medium bowl over a double boiler and warm until melted. In a small saucepan, combine milk and glucose. Bring to a boil, add bloomed gelatin, and stir to dissolve. Emulsify hot milk mixture into melted chocolate in 3 additions. Mix in and emulsify cold cream. Strain through a chinois. Refrigerate for 8 hours to crystalize.

For the Beet Sorbet:
Heat the bath of an immersion circulator to 85°C. In a vacuum bag, combine beet juice, beets, salt, and glucose powder. Seal and cook sous vide 1 hour. Remove beets from bath, transfer to a blender, and purée. Transfer purée to a large pot. In a small bowl, whisk sorbet stabilizer into sugar; then whisk into the purée. Heat purée to 85°C and cook 3 minutes. Remove from heat, season with orange and lemon juices and chill. Freeze at -20°C before pacotizing. Once spun, shape 20 grams portions of sorbet into a spherical round. Refreeze in blast freezer at -20°C.

For the Beet Glaze:
In the bowl of a Thermomix, combine beet juice, sugar, low acyl gellan gum, and xanthan gum and process at 80°C. Dip spheres of Beet Sorbet into the warm glazes and return spheres to blast chiller.  

For the Toasted Oats:
Preheat oven to 150°C. In a small saucepot, combine sugar, honey, and oil. Warm just enough to dissolve sugar. In a large bowl, add oats and combine with honey mixture, tossing to evenly coat. Spread oats over a parchment-lined half sheet pan. Bake 25 minutes, rotating and mixing every 9 to 10 minutes. Season with salt.

For the Chocolate Crumble:
Preheat oven to 160°C. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add egg and mix until incorporated. Incorporate the dry ingredients. Spread dough on a parchment-lined half sheet tray and bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool. Place in a dehydrator and dehydrate until crispy. Grind in a food processor and sift through a tammis.

For the Coffee Grounds:
Preheat oven to 150°C. In a bowl, stir to combine sugar, hazelnut flour, wheat flour, espresso, butter, and salt. Spread mixture onto a parchment-lined half sheet tray and bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cool and crumble.

For the Sheep’s Milk Yogurt:
In a bowl, combine vanilla and yogurt. Whisk in 10x sugar and Ultra-tex. Pass through a chinois and store in a piping bag.

For the Mandarin Pudding:
In a Thermomix, combine mandarin juice, sugar, low acyl gellan gum, calcium gluconate, and sodium hexametaphosphate and hydrate at 90°C. Remove from heat and set until firm. Transfer to a blender and purée until smooth. Pass through a chinois and store in piping bag.

For the Chocolate Roots:
Pipe and shape tempered chocolate into beetroot structure. Dust with beet powder.

For the Sweet Vinaigrette:
Season Chardonnay vinegar with simple syrup.

To Assemble and Serve:
Temper Beet Sorbet spheres 5 to 10 minutes, making sure it is soft and creamy. In a bowl, dress beet greens with Sweet Vinaigrette. Pipe a circle of Mandarin purée into bowl, and encircle it with a ring of Mandarin Pudding, then a ring of Soft Chocolate. Bury the base in Toasted Oats and sprinkle with Coffee Grounds and Chocolate Crumble. Garnish with anise hyssop, chamomile, and spring flowers. Place Beet Sorbet sphere on top of the terrain, taking care not to smash the herbs. Insert a Chocolate Root and a dressed beet top.