Yam Mont Blanc by KOKO Cafe and Patisserie, Singapore

I love the use of earthy vegetables in desserts, especially mont blancs due to the blend between creaminess, natural starchiness and earthy nutty flavours. So I was eager to try this Yam Mont Blanc by KOKO Cafe and Patisserie. Koko is a local cafe originating in Singapore, but it is inspired by Japanese cuisine.
Yam Mont Blanc by KOKO Cafe and Patisserie, Singapore
The first impression I had was that it was very pretty. While many mont blanc desserts these days attempt to arrange the noodle-like puree in a relatively neat heap, this must be the neatest mont blanc I have ever seen. Look at how concentric and even the circles are, and how evenly spaced each "noodle" or layer is. It is so neat that their sprinkling of the snowy powder icing sugar ends up creating a very pleasing and even alternating striped pattern. Furthermore, as you'll see later, the filling under this pretty dome is not just pure cream like normal mont blanc desserts, but there's actually another filling inside, resulting in this very neat egg-shaped mont blanc dome, which is probably more difficult to shape than something that is just purely conical. Even the interior layers were very even and well-shaped (see the photo below). So the pastry chef deserves big kudos for this aesthetic feat.

In terms of the gourmet experience, I quite liked it overall. The yam was pretty sweet, but it didn't come off as a bad thing because the yam flavour itself leaned more earthy, nutty and root-like (as opposed to vanilla-like sweet fragrance of the taro variety). There was a very faint chestnut-like fragrance, but it was not easily noticeable. So the sweetness was well balanced by the earthiness and nuttiness and did not come off as too cloying. 
Yam Mont Blanc by KOKO Cafe and Patisserie - filling inside
The yam paste texture was also just right - it was dense, slightly sticky and smooth, which I feel root-like and earthy fillings should be, and I prefer this compared to something that is too light, watery or airy. 

This nutty, earthy and dense yam coating went very well with the lighter, fluffier and milky cream. 

The yam's flavour and stickness also paired with with the berry puree inside, surprisingly. It states in the cold case description that it is a mixed berry filling, but it seemed to lean more towards raspberry and strawberry, without any noticeable blueberry flavour. The piquant and fruity notes masked the fragrant aspects of the yam, but the yam's rich nutty and earthy notes provided a nice and grounded fullness in the body of the taste that supported the berry puree's fruity fragrance well. So this was overall a thoughtful and intriguing combination that required quite a refined gourmet sense to discover, and I was impressed by it.

Finally, for the meringue, it had a standard and decent quality, but I didn't like the overall combination because it was too sweet, as meringues have to necessarily be, and I felt that this extra sharp sweetness tipped the overall mouthful into being too cloyingly sweet. The egg in the meringue paired well with the nutty yam and milky cream, though, so if there's some way to preserve that pairing without the customary sweetness, that would have been another nice touch. Perhaps an eggy sponge or biscuit base might have been better, but those might end up getting soggy. (The good part about the meringue is that it retained its crisp crunch.)

This photo below is the official diagram of the dessert, which matches up very well with the photo of the transection I did above, albeit a bit more dome-shaped, so it was a job well done! (You can also see that the other pieces in the glass case are also very evenly-shaped.)
Yam Mont Blanc by KOKO Cafe and Patisserie - diagramatic description of layers
Overall, this was a pleasant experience, and I would love to see more different types of mont blancs from the genius brains of this team. (Pumpkin mont blanc perhaps? Haha)

And if you love mont blancs, here's my review of a Purple Sweet Potato Mont Blanc by Cafe Kuriko.

Discover other yam and vegetable-inspired treats

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