Brighton

Another day, another entremets. Today, a pavé royal: 4 layers of cocoa sponge sandwiching gianduja crème à beurre scattered with crunchy crushed nougatine. All together, rather heavy and about as inspiring as a pot of Nutella.

The decor, however, is bloody spectacular. It uses the same false wood technique as the bois vert but this time in pure (tempered) chocolate. First, the milk couverture is spread thinly at one end of an acetate sheet, then the wood stamp (cf. bois vert) is rocked back and forth across the sheet to give this:

Once the milk chocolate has fixed, two thin layers of white chocolate are applied. This double layer offers extra strength. The reason you do the initial decor in milk chocolate is because this has a higher melting point than white chocolate. If you were to do things the other way round, you'd risk melting the wood pattern. Once everything sets, you can turn over and demould the sheet. It is hard to capture with my photography skills but the choc is very shiny and perfectly flat.

With the one simple concentric circle stamp, you can get a variety of different looks:

Once transfered to the top of the entremets and cut to size you end up with your Royal Slab: