I should be cooking for this week’s theme – Insect, but yet again I’ve managed to have a backlog to write up and post. So expect a bit of a deluge as I churn them out in an effort to catch up.
As regular readers will know, I am not much of a dessert person. So each time The Cookbook Challenge throws up a theme that leans toward needing to make sweet things I shudder and hide under the doona. Don’t get me wrong, I like chocolate as much as the next person, but my idea of enjoying it is slowing savouring a single piece of the best stuff I can get my hands on, not cooking with it.
To fight the inbuilt urge not to cook sweet stuff and try and work out to make for this theme, I commenced my research with my usual approach. Sitting cross legged (glass of wine in hand) on the floor in front of the shelves holding my cookbooks and going through them systematically. I start by ignoring the books I have already used in other themes. I am hoping to make it more interesting for cook and reader alike by getting through as many cookbooks as I can. Then I try and match the books to the theme if possible. This one got chosen from a book that was tucked away at the back and I had all but forgotten about.
Theme: Chocolate
Book: 2009 Melbourne Food and Wine festival Masterclass Recipe Book.
Recipe: Chocolate with bread ~ Pan con chocolate by Frank Camorra
Pan con chocolate
Ingredients
300g dark chocolate (at least 50% cocoa solids), chopped (I used Kennedy & Wilson)
4 eggs, separated
100g soft unsalted butter
2 tbs caster sugar
200g firm 2 day old white bread high tin loaf, crusts removed. sliced 2 mm thick x 80mm x 20 mm.
Good quality sea salt crystals , to sprinkle
olive oil, to drizzle , hojiblanca variety (I didn’t have this Spanish oil & used a cold pressed olive oil from L’Oliveraie in Beechworth north-east Victoria)
Method
First of all, preheat the oven to 180C.
Gently melt the chocolate in a bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally – as always with a water bath make sure the base of the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Remove from the heat, then whisk in the egg yolks. I did them one at a time so that they were fully combined. Then add the butter and stir until all the butter has melted.
In another bowl, make your meringue by whisking the egg whites until soft peaks form, then, still whisking continuously, gradually add the sugar. Do not over beat. Mix one third of the meringue into the chocolate mixture until nearly combined, then gently fold through the remaining meringue. Pour the mixture into a greased and baking paper lined 10x25cm loaf tin, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour, until just set, should be served not too cold and just set, so it’s important to make this very close to the time required.
Place the bread slices in a single layer over a large oven tray, then cover with another oven tray the same size and bake for 15 minutes until crisp, then remove and cool.
To serve, invert the chocolate onto a chopping board and cut into slices. Drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle with a tiny pinch of salt crystals, serve with bread.
This is a dessert that I could do again. Not at all difficult to make and, despite its chocolately goodness, not too sweet. The olive oil and salt at the end really bring it together.
Chocolate with bread
