Caramelised white chocolate

I've been hearing about caramelised chocolate for a while so of course I wanted to see what the fuss was about. And I've always been a big fan of caramel...

I'd bought a new cookbook by pastry chef  Darren Purchese (of Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio fame - in Chapel St, Melbourne), called Lamingtons & Lemon Tart and that set me on the path!

His dessert used caramelised white chocolate mousse, coffee crumble, banana ice cream and fresh passionfruit but I'd decided I was going to use a poached pear component and a vanilla panna cotta. I was going to a BBQ and taking a dessert and an ice cream element wasn't really going to be convenient. No better occasion for a bit of experimenting with yummy foods. What could possibly go wrong?

So, following the Purchese instructions, for the caramelised white chocolate I chopped about 400g of white couverture chocolate, spread it on glad bake on an oven tray and popped it in the oven at 120°C. Every 10 minutes or so, I'd move and mix it around then spread it back out, and gradually it turned golden in colour and the taste became distinctly caramelised. I can't say it was AMAZING, but very nice and an interesting process to try.
Here it is looking something like a bubbling mud pool.

I found a recipe for panna cotta and I poured that into the bottom of my glass dishes and refrigerated to set.

From a recipe called Mille-Feuilles Pear/Caramel in the book, The New Patissiers by Olivier Dupon, I poached 500g pears (peeled, cored and quartered) in 200g brown sugar and 90ml pear liqueur until softened. . 

The poaching liquid was such a beautiful golden bronze and tasty too, that I decided to make a jelly with that.

To make the caramelised white chocolate mousse, I combined 350g melted caramelised white chocolate, 460ml heated cream, and 1 gelatine leaf (softened). This just then went to a smooth spreadable creamy consistency. This was with the original dessert idea in Darren Purchese's book.

Now there always seems to be a crunch element added, from the recipe, Opera Estragon, in The New Patissiers, I made a component called "Almond Croquant". This had me cream 45g butter with 55g icing sugar and add 15g plain flour. After spreading to a 20cm square on a glad bake lined tray, I sprinkled on 60g almond flakes, then cooked it for about 15 minutes until evenly golden at 180°C. When cool, I broke it into shards and placed them randomly on top with the poached pear.

So the layers were panna cotta on the bottom, then the pear jelly, caramelised white chocolate mousse and the fruit and almond croquant on top! Perhaps it was a lot of work for one dessert? But each element didn't take too long and it was something different to try and tasty too!