Purple Sweet Potato Mont-blanc

Swirly whirly mont blanc, a popular French dessert, this time purple with sweet potato. The sweet potato are piped on a light and airy meringue base without sponge cake which is different from the traditional one. Homemade meringues are chewy and soft but may not have a crisp texture whilst many commercial meringues add chemical to achieved crisp throughout.

Meringues Base  ( Makes 8 )

• 60 g Egg Whites
• Pinch of Sea Salt
• 1/4 tsp Lemon Juice
• 60 g Caster Sugar
• 10 g Hazenut flour or Almond Flour

Mashed Purple Sweet Potatoes

• 400 g Mashed Purple Sweet Potato
• 20 g Icing Sugar
• 50 g Whipping Cream
• 50 g Coconut Cream

Toppings

• Pistacho, Hazenut

Preparation

1. Wrap sweet potatoes with aluminium foil and baked in oven at 220ºC for 40 minutes. You may also cook the purple sweet potato in the in a steamer for 20 minutes until soft. But i recommend baking.  Peel, and crumble 140 g of the potato into a bowl. Add icing sugar, whipping cream and coconut cream. Mix well. Press the cream mixture through a fine sieve to remove any lumps. Place purple sweet potato in piping bag with multi-opening ( like a “spaghetti” tip) decorating tip attached.

2.  Line baking sheet on a baking tray. Prepared another piping bag with diameter 0.5 cm decorating tip attached. Preheat the oven to 150ºC

3. Place egg white and sea salt into a mixing bowl. Beat egg white until thick and fluffy. Add few drops of lemon juice. Add caster sugar by 2 times until soft peaks, egg whites should stick to the sides of the bowl and not look liquidly. Peaks will form and the tips will curl over. Sift in hazenut flour, fold lightly and mix well.

4. Place meringue in piping bag, pipe the meringue spirally into a cylindrical shape about 4 cm in diameter. Baked in oven for about 30 minutes until meringue cooked. Meringue is easily burn so I lower the oven temperature to 130ºC heat only with the lower line. Test with a toothpick, if nothing stick on toothpick mean it is done. Transfer to a wire rack for cooling down.

5. To serve, place the sweet potato cream in a piping bag with a tip and pipe the cream on top of the meringue. Dusk with icing sugar if you like. Topped with crashed nuts.

Tips

• It was a necessary step as it had to be absolutely smooth without any stringy bits as it had to be piped with a multi-opening nozzle