Mont Blanc
A dessert named after the mountain and built like it: a meringue base, a mound of whipped cream and strands of chestnut cream laid over it like a slope, dusted with icing sugar at the summit. The construction is logical from the bottom up — meringue gives crispness and dryness, cream gives lightness, and a very thick chestnut cream holds the shape of the strands.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Meringues 90 min
- Chestnut cream 20 min
- Whipped cream 10 min
- Assembly 20 min
- Chilling 40 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneWhip the meringue and pipe discs
Heat the oven to 100°C. Whip the whites, adding the sugar a spoonful at a time, to stiff glossy peaks, finally folding in the cornflour and vinegar. Pipe six 8 cm discs onto paper. The vinegar and cornflour add extra stability to the foam, so the discs hold their shape better.
Ingredients: 3 pcs egg whites · 150 g caster sugar · 1 tsp cornflour · ½ tsp vinegar
Dry the meringues at low heat
Bake 90 minutes at 100°C, then switch the oven off and leave them inside to cool. This is drying rather than baking — the meringue should stay white and completely dry, because its job here is to be a crisp base insulated from moisture.
Ingredients: 3 pcs egg whites · 150 g caster sugar · 1 tsp cornflour · ½ tsp vinegar
White and bone dry — they snap when broken.Beat the chestnut purée with butter
Beat the purée with the soft butter, rum and vanilla for 5 minutes, until smooth and glossy. If too stiff to pipe, add the cream a spoonful at a time — it should come out of the bag in a strand, not crumble. The rum is uncooked: for children, replace it with a spoonful of milk.
Ingredients: 400 g chestnut purée · 80 g butter · 2 tbsp rum · 1 tsp vanilla extract · 60 ml whipping cream (30–36%)
Smooth and glossy — soft enough to pass through a nozzle.Whip the cream to stiff peaks
Whip the very cold cream with the icing sugar until stiff, not to soft peaks. Here the cream has to support a mound and the weight of the chestnut cream above it — too loose and it settles within a quarter of an hour.
Ingredients: 400 ml whipping cream (30–36%) · 40 g icing sugar · 6 pcs candied chestnuts
Mound the cream onto each meringue
Pile a tall mound of cream onto each meringue and smooth it into a cone with a spoon. The shape matters: it makes the slope the piped strands will lie along. A flat layer gives a dessert that looks like a pastry, not a mountain.
Ingredients: 400 ml whipping cream (30–36%) · 40 g icing sugar · 6 pcs candied chestnuts
Pipe the strands through a multi-hole nozzle
Fill a piping bag fitted with a multi-hole vermicelli nozzle and pipe long strands, circling the mound from the base upwards, densely, until no cream shows. Without that nozzle, use a potato ricer — the result is surprisingly close.
Ingredients: 400 g chestnut purée · 80 g butter · 2 tbsp rum · 1 tsp vanilla extract · 60 ml whipping cream (30–36%)
Strands laid from base to summit, densely.Chill and dust with icing sugar
Chill 40 minutes so the cream firms. Just before serving dust the summit with icing sugar and set a candied chestnut on top. The sugar goes on at the table — after half an hour it soaks into the cream and the snow disappears.
Ingredients: 400 ml whipping cream (30–36%) · 40 g icing sugar · 6 pcs candied chestnuts
Before you start
Shop-bought chestnut purée
French crème de marrons is sweetened and ready to use. Unsweetened purée needs 80 g of icing sugar added. You don't have to peel and purée chestnuts yourself — it is long work, and a good shop-bought purée gives an excellent result in this dessert.
Meringues a day ahead
Meringues keep a week in an airtight tin, so they are easiest made ahead; the chestnut cream can be made the day before and kept in the fridge (bring it back to room temperature before piping). An assembled Mont Blanc holds a few hours at most before the meringue softens under the cream.
The version without meringue
In Italy monte bianco is often made without meringue: chestnut purée is pushed through a ricer into a mound straight onto the plate and the summit is capped with whipped cream like snow. It is moister and more homely — the meringue adds a contrast of texture.
