This charlotte is a quick and easy to prepare chocolate cake with a creamy chocolate mousse, soft pears and crispy Maltesers balls.
I couldn’t resist offering a birthday cake to celebrate My Parisian Kitchen 1year anniversary. I wanted however a very special cake, something that I had never cooked. That’s when I realized that I had never done any charlotte. This cake is actually the perfect choice: So simple and impossible to mess up, quick to prepare, absolutely delicious and, on top of that, a charlotte generally makes that kind of WOW effect on people. I admit it’s beautiful. I indeed had great pleasure taking photos.
I imagined this charlotte thinking of my 3 kids who have been the first ones to taste my recipes all year long (well actually as far as I bake sweet recipes. For savory ones, it’s rather my husband’s job). So in charlotte for 3 teens, I HAD to have chocolate. As they like to be surprised, they discovered at every bite, soft pieces of pear and crunchy Maltesers balls (it can also be done with Kit Kat Balls).
A delight! You should try this. You may vary proportions of pear and Maltesers balls according to your taste. Or just have chocolate and pears.
Some add gelatin in charlotte recipes (even for recipes chocolate charlotte). I do not think it’s necessary.
Chocolate Charlotte with Pears and Crispy Maltesers
Equipment
- Charlotte mold
Ingredients
- 18 to 20 lady finger biscuits
Syrup for soaking lady fingers
- 120 ml water
- 60 g sugar or sugar + vanilla abstract
Instructions
First prepare syrup
- Heat 120 ml water with 60 gr sugar. You may add the fragrance of your choice such as an alcohol.
- At the first broth remove from heat and let cool down.
Then prepare ingredients
- Peel pears and cut them into cubes. Heat a frying pan. When hot, pour in pear cubes, sprinkle with vanilla sugar, stir and cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes (until pear juice evaporates). Leave on a plate covered with paper towel (which will absorb any excess of humidity).
- Cut fifteen / twenty Maltesers balls in two.
- Cut a greaseproof paper disc of the diameter of the bottom of your charlotte mold.
Then prepare the mousse
- Melt chocolate with 50 ml milk.
- Whip cream until you get a soft chantilly (too tight, it will be difficult to combine uniformly with chocolate and your mousse might be a bit dense).
- Finally gently combine chocolate and chantilly cream.
Finally arrange the charlotte in the mold
- Place the greaseproof t paper disc to the bottom of the mold
- Soak lady fingers’s flat side into syrup, drain a bit and place them all around your mold, rounded side against the mold.
- Pour a layer of chocolate mousse
- Alternate cubes of pear and Maltesers between each layer of chocolate mousse. For the quantity and arrangement of pears and Maltesers, it all depends on your taste.
- End with a chocolate mousse layer.
- Dip the round side of lady fingers in syrup and cover the top, flat side on top, rounded side against chocolate mousse (we want our charlotte to keep steady with a flat bottom when flipped).
Refrigerate and dress
- Place in the refrigerator at least for 2 hours, ideally 3 or 4 hours.
- Finally, flip the charlotte on a presentation dish, remove the disc of greaseproof paper and decorate according to your inspiration with for instance Maltesers few balls and grated white chocolate .
Notes
Bon appétit !
