Recipe for Sucrine du Berry, by Christophe Hay**

Ingredients (serves 12):

For the hazelnut cake:
- 200 g flour
- 11 g yeast
- 100 g sugar
- 100 g pumpkin puree
- 2 eggs
- 20 g chestnut honey
- 70 g toasted walnuts
- 100 g Guénard French walnut oil

For the pumpkin cubes:
- 1 pumpkin
- 300 g sugar
- 200 g water
- 1 vanilla pod

For the pumpkin puree:
- 500 g pumpkin trimmings
- 50 g sugar
- 1 vanilla pod
- 100 g Guénard French walnut oil

For the pumpkin crémeux:
- 210 g pumpkin juice
- 65 g sugar
- 65 g egg yolk
- 80 g whole egg
- 5 g gelatin
- 25 g water
- 80 g butter

For the pumpkin slices:
- 1 pumpkin
- 100 g Guénard pumpkin seed oil
- 1 vanilla pod

For the walnut crisp:
- 200 g walnuts
- 200 g sugar
- 65 g water

For the caramel:
- 60 g glucose
- 55 g sugar
- 40 g water
- 60 g cream
- 100 g pumpkin juice
- 47 g butter

For the Sichuan pepper ice cream:
- 1120 g milk
- 120 g butter
- 160 g egg yolk
- 260 g sugar
- 70 g atomized glucose
- 4 g sorbet stabilizer
- 30 g Sichuan pepper

Preparation instructions:

For the hazelnut cake:

Place the pumpkin puree, eggs, honey and Guénard French walnut oil in a kitchen mixer with a paddle attachment, and mix.

As you do so, sieve all the powdered ingredients and add to the mixing bowl with the walnuts. Blend until the batter is even and smooth.

Pour into a rectangular mold and bake for 25 minutes at 180 C°. Leave to cool.

For the pumpkin cubes:

Make a syrup using the water, sugar and scraped vanilla pod.

Peel the pumpkin and cut into 1 cm by 1 cm cubes.

Add to the simmering syrup and poach. Make sure that the syrup never comes to the boil, otherwise the pumpkin cubes will soften to a puree texture.

Once cooked, set aside in the chilled syrup.

For the pumpkin puree:

Wrap the evenly chopped pumpkin trimmings in aluminum foil with the sugar and vanilla.

Seal into a parcel and bake for 20 minutes at 200 °C.

Remove from the oven, mix with the Guénard French walnut oil whilst still hot, and chill.

For the pumpkin crémeux:

Make pumpkin juice by blending the trimmings. Bring the juice to the boil. As you do so, beat the egg yolks, whole eggs and sugar together. Then cook together with the pumpkin juice using the same technique as for making pastry cream.

Leave to cool slightly, and when the mixture reaches 60 °C, add the rehydrated gelatin. At 40 °C, add the softened butter.

Leave to cool and then whip. Pour into a piping bag and set aside.

For the pumpkin slices:

Cut extremely thin, even slices of pumpkin. Delicately poach in simmering Guénard pumpkin seed oil with the split vanilla pod. Once poached, set aside in the chilled syrup.

For the walnut crisp:

Toast the walnuts in the oven. Make a caramel from the water and sugar, until you achieve a light brown color.

Once the caramel is the desired color, add the walnuts and then spread the mixture out over two sheets of parchment paper before the caramel cools. Set aside in a dry place.

For the caramel:

Use the water and sugar to make a caramel in a saucepan. Add the pumpkin juice, infused cream and butter to the caramel to stop it cooking – careful, the liquid mixture should be boiling.

Bring the mixture to the boil, then chill and set aside for plating.

For the Sichuan pepper ice cream:

Bring the milk, cream and pepper to the boil. As you do so, beat the egg yolks together with the powdered ingredients.

Cook all the ingredients together at 85 °C. Strain and leave to chill overnight. Blend and process the mixture.

Plating:

Place a cookie circle on a plate. Put a few cubes of candied pumpkin on top of the disc, and cover with the pumpkin crémeux. Place the pumpkin slice on top.

Add the walnut crisp in the center of the slice, and then a quenelle of ice cream at the last moment.

If possible, add a few wild herb shoots around the crisp.

Just before serving, add the quenelle of ice cream and pour over the room-temperature caramel.

Decorate with drops of Guénard French walnut oil.