Chocolate Greek pastry chefs Hazelnut
Walk in the Forest Tart with chocolate and hazelnut gianduja ganache by Giorgos Avgeros
When coming up with his sweet creations, Giorgos Avgeros, executive pastry chef at Sani Resort, a luxurious hotel on the Greek shores of the Aegean Sea, finds inspiration in most things. “I draw inspiration from nature, fairy tales, my childhood and the place where I grew up, and also from fantasy movies! The first school that I graduated from, the woodcarving school, has been very helpful in that regard,” he explains.
The chef, convinced that Greek pastry has a bright future, uses all the techniques and methods learned in disciplines such as sculpture, painting, ceramics, or wood carving to work with chocolate, achieving pieces like this Walk in the Forest tart.
Walk in the Forest Tart
Chocolate pâte sablée
- 1000 g butter
- 630 g powdered sugar
- 7 g salt
- 200 g almond powder
- 400 g eggs
- 1800 g flour
- 200 g cocoa
- 1 pinch vanillin powder
Blend the butter and the icing sugar using the paddle attachment. Add the powdered ingredients first and the eggs last. Pre-bake the tart shell at 170° for 10 minutes.
Hazelnut filling
- 150 g butter 82% fat
- 150 g beurre noisette
- 200 g powdered sugar
- 275 g eggs
- 350 g powdered hazelnuts
- 35 g corn starch
- 150 g hazelnut praline 50%
- 20 g Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur
- 60 g Valrhona Yuzu Inspiration
Beat the softened butter in a mixer. Add the eggs one by one, the dry ingredients, the hazelnut, the praline, and the liqueur. Bake for 10 minutes in a tart pan. Top the tart shell with 200 g of the hazelnut filling and 60 g Yuzu Inspiration.
Hazelnut Gianduja Ganache
- 975 g cream
- 937 g Valrhona Gianduja Noisette 36%
- 312 g Valrhona Caramelia 36%
- 75 g invert sugar
- 260 g butter, softened
Boil the cream and invert sugar. Pour over the chocolate and emulsify. When the ganache reaches a temperature of 35°C, add the butter.
Montage
To create the “soil”, make gianduja curls using a peeler and freeze them. Crumble the curls in the thermomix and spread on the tart. Fill spherical silicone molds and place a whole hazelnut inside. Dip in various types of chocolate to create shading and apply glaze spray.
