Yoyos

Cook Time 30 to 40 minutes

Servings 25-30

Ingredients

6 eggs, separated

140g caster sugar

125g plain flour, sifted

50g cornflour, sifted

300g dark chocolate, chopped or buttons

Vanilla Syrup

200g caster sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped

Vanilla Custard Filling

500ml milk

50g unsalted butter

50g sugar

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped

6 egg yolks

50g custard powder

Method

To make the syrup, combine all of the ingredients with 200ml of water in a small saucepan and stir. Bring to the boil over medium heat. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool completely before using.

To make the custard filling, combine the milk, butter and the vanilla bean and seeds in a small saucepan over medium heat and bring the mixture to the boil. Meanwhile, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar and custard power. Pour half the boiling milk mixture into the egg mixture and stir well. Return the mixture to the pan with the remaining milk mixture.

Return to medium heat, whisking until the custard becomes quite thick. Make sure it does not catch on the bottom of the saucepan.

Pour custard into a heatproof bowl and discard the vanilla bean. Cover the surface with plastic wrap and transfer to the refrigerator to cool completely before using.

Preheat the oven to 200C. Line one large or two small baking trays with baking paper.

In an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the egg yolks with 90g of the caster sugar on high speed until pale and thick. Transfer to a bowl.

Use a clean dry bowl and whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites starting on low speed and gradually increasing to high speed to soft peaks. Reduce the speed to low and slowly add the remaining sugar, then increase the speed to high and whisk to firm peaks.

Fold half of the egg white mixture into the yolk mixture. Then fold through the flour and cornflour. Fold in the remaining egg white mixture, make sure not to over mix the sponge.

Put the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a plain size 13 nozzle. Pipe 5cm discs onto the prepared trays, making sure there is plenty of space between each one. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes until golden. Allow to cool on the tray. The mixture should make 50-60 sponge discs.

To assemble, match the sponge cookies up into pairs. Turn one of each pair over so that the flat side faces up. Brush the flat side with the sugar syrup.

Take the custard filling out of the refrigerator and beat with a spatula until smooth. Fill a piping bag fitted with a plain size 15 nozzle with the custard filling and pipe it on to the cookie just inside the edge.

Turn the other discs over and brush the plat side with the sugar syrup. Place the matching cookie on top of the custard so that the flat side coated with sugar syrup is touching the custard. Gently squeeze together so that the custard cream reaches the edge of the cookie.

Put the chocolate into a microwave-proof bowl and melt in 40-second bursts, stirring between each burst, until two-thirds of the chocolate is melted. Stir the chocolate until it’s completely melted and then temper down to 30C.

Dip the to of a kok into the chocolate and allow the excess chocolate to run off. Place the kok back onto the tray with the chocolate side up and allow to set completely.

Repeat for the remaining Kok. Fill a paper piping bag with the remaining chocolate and pipe a spiral on top of each Kok.