Loaded with dried fruits this one Mendiants are chocolate lovers delight. This traditional French confection that look like chocolate buttons are pretty quick and insanely easy to make. These French confections, studded with dried fruit and nuts that are mostly served during Christmas time only sae 4 iconic toppings almonds (white) for the Dominicans, raisins (gray) for the Franciscans, hazelnuts (brown) for the Carmelites, and dried figs (purple) for the Augustinians.
The dessert that get’s it name from Latin root mendicans, which means "begging," is mostly in reference to those adopted a lifestyle of poverty like monks and friars and those who preach. It is from there that the classic image grew of the poor friar who has given away all his earthly possessions and lives off the charity of the faithful. The original chocolate mendiants had as their toppings fruits and nuts meant to symbolize the four major mendicant orders of the Roman Catholic Church. The colours of their robes
With time these Mendiants saw a lot of makeover in their toppings like edible rose petals, dried raspberries, coconut flakes, orange peel, dried cranberries, candied ginger, goji berries and more. A really good good bittersweet chocolate does magic as it’s not too sweet, not too bitter.
In Slurrp exclusive Chef Avni Maleyvar from The Oberoi, Bengaluru shares with us her festive creation
Ingredients
• 100g of 70% dark chocolate
• 30g of roasted Walnuts, cut into halves
• 30g of dried cranberries
• 10g of white sesame seeds
Method
• Lightly roast the walnuts in oven at 150 °C for 10-15 minutes.
• Lightly roast white sesame seeds in oven at 150 °C for 5-7 minutes.
• Place the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave at 30-second intervals, stirring the chocolate with a silicon spatula in between each interval, until the chocolate is about halfway melted, with a pool of melted chocolate in the bowl. Continue stirring with the spatula to allow the residual heat of the chocolate to melt the remaining chocolate bits.
• Set a piping bag inside a tall glass. Fold down the top of the bag several times, then pour the chocolate into the piping bag. Unfold the piping bag and twist the bag to gently tighten; use scissors to cut the tip off the bag.
• Pipe 1-inch rounds of chocolate on the parchment-lined baking sheet; tap pan on the counter to flatten into 1 1/2 to 2-inch rounds.
• Sprinkle the toasted walnuts, cranberries and sesame seeds on the piped chocolate.
• Leave the mendiants to cool and set.
• When set, carefully peel off the paper and place into an airtight container.
