It pays to have a few festive tricks up your sleeve – and that means chocolate. Lots of it
'Now bring us some figgy pudding!" goes the carol, but not everyone is enamoured of boozy, spicy, fruity Christmas pud; or, indeed, of oozy, super-sweet mince pies. Even those who love them will not want to indulge more than a couple of times over the holiday period, so whether it's to offer as an alternative on the big day, or to cater for a Boxing Day or New Year crowd, you'll need something else by way of a sweet treat. And it had better be good. It is Christmas, after all.
Well, I can pretty much guarantee that if you bring them a chocolate pudding – especially a rich, dark and sophisticated one – they won't be disappointed. This is not just because chocolate is so widely loved, and a pretty safe bet. It's also a fantastic ingredient to shuffle into the Christmas culinary chaos because it has so much deep, pleasing flavour. Foil-wrapped chocolate coins and melting tree decorations aside, real, cocoa-rich chocolate is complex, deep and slightly bitter: just the kind of thing you need in a punch-packing pudding in the high season of hearty.
You don't always need actual chocolate to make a great chocolate pud. Cocoa powder, formed from roasted cocoa beans after the cocoa butter has been extracted, is intensely chocolatey but not at all sweet. In sponges or cakes, where you want the finish to be light and fluffy, but still delicately moist, cocoa is ideal; it acts like a super-chocolatey flour. (Melted chocolate doesn't always work so well in sponges, giving a heavy and rather unyielding finish.)
When it comes to rich, creamy mixtures, however – brownies, mousses, dense, almondy cakes and ice-creams – a good dark chocolate is what you want. It will melt and meld deliciously with all those other indulgent ingredients. For cooking, I generally use chocolate with 70-75% cocoa solids. It's easy to buy bars with a much higher cocoa solid content, but such intense stuff can be too strong and bitter (though I have used 85% very successfully in brownies, where it cuts through all the butter and sugar). Bear in mind, though, that the figure for cocoa solid content can be a bit of a red herring: it's not in itself a guarantee of quality, and I've eaten chocolate with very high cocoa solids that was still bland and waxy. As with any ingredient, properly good chocolate is about the calibre of the raw materials: the cocoa beans and how they were produced, roasted and processed.
My friend Claire Burnet, who runs the Dorset-based artisan chocolate company Chococo, knows all the tricks of the trade. "Cheap chocolate often has some of the cocoa butter removed and replaced with cheaper vegetable fats, including palm oil," she tells me, "whereas top producers actually put extra cocoa butter back in."
Cocoa is packed with a huge range of aromatic compounds, and in good dark chocolate those flavours are there in abundance. Taste your chocolate before you cook with it – it should release waves of flavour on your tongue: nutty, toasty, vanilla, fruity, coffee-ish. For a dish such as today's clementine one, the chocolate has to stand out in its unadulterated form, so it's got to be good. But even in a pudding or mousse, any extra money you spend on top-notch choc will be paid back in sumptuous flavour.
*Clementines with marrons glacés and chocolate*
You could put a box of marrons glacés (candied chestnuts), a bowl of clementines and a couple of bars of dark chocolate on the table after dinner and let your guests tuck in. You won't get many complaints. But if you take the 10 minutes or so needed to put those ingredients together into this extravagant fruit salad, you'll get a round of applause. Quantities are per person.
*2-3 squares dark chocolate, 70-75% cocoa solids*
*2 clementines (or tangerines), chilled*
*1 large marron glacé*
Break up the chocolate into small pieces, and put it into a heatproof bowl set over a pan of just simmering water – ensure the bowl is not touching the water – and leave to melt, stirring once or twice.
Meanwhile, peel the clementines. With a small, sharp knife, remove as much of the white pith and membrane as possible. Use a large, sharp knife to slice the clementines into 5cm-thick discs. Reserve the small end bits.
Arrange the slices evenly over each plate. Crumble the marrons glacés on top, then trickle the molten chocolate over the cool fruit, where it will quickly set into gorgeous whirls and ribbons. Squeeze the juice from the reserved end bits over the top and it's ready to go. Delicious with a glass of chilled champagne.
*Chocolate, brandy and star anise ice-cream*
This lovely, grown-up ice-cream comes from Gelf Alderson, chef and senior tutor at the River Cottage HQ cookery school. Makes about 800ml.
*3-5 whole star anise *
*200ml whole milk*
*300ml double cream*
*Finely grated zest of 1 large orange (optional)*
*1 vanilla pod, split*
*4 large egg yolks*
*100g caster sugar*
*200g dark chocolate (70-75% cocoa solids), finely chopped*
*75ml cider brandy or calvados *
Bash the star anise in a pestle and mortar – you want to reduce them to chunky bits, not a powder. Tip into a pan with the milk, cream and orange zest, if using. Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod and put seeds and pod into the pan. Bring to just below boiling point, then set aside to infuse for 15 minutes.
Beat together the egg yolks and sugar until well combined. Strain the hot cream through a fine sieve over the eggs and sugar, whisking all the time. Pour the mixture into a clean saucepan and cook gently, stirring all the time, for a few minutes, or until the custard has thickened. Don't let it boil or it will split.
Remove the thickened custard from the heat and add the finely chopped chocolate. Stir gently until the chocolate has melted. Stir in the cider brandy, strain through a sieve into a clean bowl, then set aside, with a piece of clingfilm or baking parchment on the surface to stop a skin forming, until cool.
Churn the custard in an ice-cream maker until soft-set, then transfer to the freezer to freeze solid. Alternatively, pour the mixture into a plastic Tupperware-type container and freeze for about an hour, or until the sides start to get solid. When this happens, mash up the mixture with a fork, mixing the frozen sides into the liquid centre. Put it back in the freezer for another hour, and repeat at hourly intervals until soft-set, then let the ice-cream set solid. Transfer to the fridge 30 minutes before serving, to soften a little.
The Grenada Chocolate Company's bars are an excellent choice, and ethically produced (they are even exported to Europe via sailing ship). Claire also recommends Marou, a Vietnamese single origin brand.
*Hot chocolate toffee banana pudding*
Made with ingredients most of us have knocking about at Christmas, this glorious fusion of banoffee, sticky toffee and chocolate sponge is easy to put together and a great crowd-pleaser. Serves six to eight.
*100g softened butter, plus extra for greasing*
*3 medium-ripe, medium-sized bananas*
*100g self-raising flour*
*50g ground almonds*
*30g cocoa powder *
*100g caster sugar*
*2 large eggs*
*75ml milk*
For the toffee sauce
*100g soft dark brown sugar*
*40g butter*
*200ml double cream*
Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Lightly butter an oven dish that's 17cm x 27cm and at least 5cm deep. Put the ingredients for the sauce in a small saucepan and heat gently, stirring often, until the butter has melted and you have a smooth brown toffee sauce. Set aside.
Peel the bananas and halve each one across the middle, then cut each in half again lengthwise, so you have four pieces from each banana. Arrange in the buttered dish, and pour over the sauce.
Mix the flour, almonds and cocoa powder, and set aside. Beat together the butter and sugar for several minutes until very pale, light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of the cocoa mixture with each, then fold in the rest of the cocoa mixture. Add the milk to form a batter with a soft dropping consistency. Dollop this over the bananas and toffee, and carefully spread it out: it should just barely cover the sauce, so don't worry if some is still visible at the edges. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the sponge is firm on top and the sauce bubbling up around the edges. Poke a skewer into the middle of the sponge, to check it's cooked through. Leave to settle for a few minutes, and serve piping hot with cold double cream. Serve it with the sponge uppermost, or flip the portions as they come out of the dish, so the bananas and toffee take top spot.
• Go to rivercottage.net for the latest news from River Cottage HQ. Reported by guardian.co.uk 12 hours ago.
'Now bring us some figgy pudding!" goes the carol, but not everyone is enamoured of boozy, spicy, fruity Christmas pud; or, indeed, of oozy, super-sweet mince pies. Even those who love them will not want to indulge more than a couple of times over the holiday period, so whether it's to offer as an alternative on the big day, or to cater for a Boxing Day or New Year crowd, you'll need something else by way of a sweet treat. And it had better be good. It is Christmas, after all.
Well, I can pretty much guarantee that if you bring them a chocolate pudding – especially a rich, dark and sophisticated one – they won't be disappointed. This is not just because chocolate is so widely loved, and a pretty safe bet. It's also a fantastic ingredient to shuffle into the Christmas culinary chaos because it has so much deep, pleasing flavour. Foil-wrapped chocolate coins and melting tree decorations aside, real, cocoa-rich chocolate is complex, deep and slightly bitter: just the kind of thing you need in a punch-packing pudding in the high season of hearty.
You don't always need actual chocolate to make a great chocolate pud. Cocoa powder, formed from roasted cocoa beans after the cocoa butter has been extracted, is intensely chocolatey but not at all sweet. In sponges or cakes, where you want the finish to be light and fluffy, but still delicately moist, cocoa is ideal; it acts like a super-chocolatey flour. (Melted chocolate doesn't always work so well in sponges, giving a heavy and rather unyielding finish.)
When it comes to rich, creamy mixtures, however – brownies, mousses, dense, almondy cakes and ice-creams – a good dark chocolate is what you want. It will melt and meld deliciously with all those other indulgent ingredients. For cooking, I generally use chocolate with 70-75% cocoa solids. It's easy to buy bars with a much higher cocoa solid content, but such intense stuff can be too strong and bitter (though I have used 85% very successfully in brownies, where it cuts through all the butter and sugar). Bear in mind, though, that the figure for cocoa solid content can be a bit of a red herring: it's not in itself a guarantee of quality, and I've eaten chocolate with very high cocoa solids that was still bland and waxy. As with any ingredient, properly good chocolate is about the calibre of the raw materials: the cocoa beans and how they were produced, roasted and processed.
My friend Claire Burnet, who runs the Dorset-based artisan chocolate company Chococo, knows all the tricks of the trade. "Cheap chocolate often has some of the cocoa butter removed and replaced with cheaper vegetable fats, including palm oil," she tells me, "whereas top producers actually put extra cocoa butter back in."
Cocoa is packed with a huge range of aromatic compounds, and in good dark chocolate those flavours are there in abundance. Taste your chocolate before you cook with it – it should release waves of flavour on your tongue: nutty, toasty, vanilla, fruity, coffee-ish. For a dish such as today's clementine one, the chocolate has to stand out in its unadulterated form, so it's got to be good. But even in a pudding or mousse, any extra money you spend on top-notch choc will be paid back in sumptuous flavour.
*Clementines with marrons glacés and chocolate*
You could put a box of marrons glacés (candied chestnuts), a bowl of clementines and a couple of bars of dark chocolate on the table after dinner and let your guests tuck in. You won't get many complaints. But if you take the 10 minutes or so needed to put those ingredients together into this extravagant fruit salad, you'll get a round of applause. Quantities are per person.
*2-3 squares dark chocolate, 70-75% cocoa solids*
*2 clementines (or tangerines), chilled*
*1 large marron glacé*
Break up the chocolate into small pieces, and put it into a heatproof bowl set over a pan of just simmering water – ensure the bowl is not touching the water – and leave to melt, stirring once or twice.
Meanwhile, peel the clementines. With a small, sharp knife, remove as much of the white pith and membrane as possible. Use a large, sharp knife to slice the clementines into 5cm-thick discs. Reserve the small end bits.
Arrange the slices evenly over each plate. Crumble the marrons glacés on top, then trickle the molten chocolate over the cool fruit, where it will quickly set into gorgeous whirls and ribbons. Squeeze the juice from the reserved end bits over the top and it's ready to go. Delicious with a glass of chilled champagne.
*Chocolate, brandy and star anise ice-cream*
This lovely, grown-up ice-cream comes from Gelf Alderson, chef and senior tutor at the River Cottage HQ cookery school. Makes about 800ml.
*3-5 whole star anise *
*200ml whole milk*
*300ml double cream*
*Finely grated zest of 1 large orange (optional)*
*1 vanilla pod, split*
*4 large egg yolks*
*100g caster sugar*
*200g dark chocolate (70-75% cocoa solids), finely chopped*
*75ml cider brandy or calvados *
Bash the star anise in a pestle and mortar – you want to reduce them to chunky bits, not a powder. Tip into a pan with the milk, cream and orange zest, if using. Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod and put seeds and pod into the pan. Bring to just below boiling point, then set aside to infuse for 15 minutes.
Beat together the egg yolks and sugar until well combined. Strain the hot cream through a fine sieve over the eggs and sugar, whisking all the time. Pour the mixture into a clean saucepan and cook gently, stirring all the time, for a few minutes, or until the custard has thickened. Don't let it boil or it will split.
Remove the thickened custard from the heat and add the finely chopped chocolate. Stir gently until the chocolate has melted. Stir in the cider brandy, strain through a sieve into a clean bowl, then set aside, with a piece of clingfilm or baking parchment on the surface to stop a skin forming, until cool.
Churn the custard in an ice-cream maker until soft-set, then transfer to the freezer to freeze solid. Alternatively, pour the mixture into a plastic Tupperware-type container and freeze for about an hour, or until the sides start to get solid. When this happens, mash up the mixture with a fork, mixing the frozen sides into the liquid centre. Put it back in the freezer for another hour, and repeat at hourly intervals until soft-set, then let the ice-cream set solid. Transfer to the fridge 30 minutes before serving, to soften a little.
The Grenada Chocolate Company's bars are an excellent choice, and ethically produced (they are even exported to Europe via sailing ship). Claire also recommends Marou, a Vietnamese single origin brand.
*Hot chocolate toffee banana pudding*
Made with ingredients most of us have knocking about at Christmas, this glorious fusion of banoffee, sticky toffee and chocolate sponge is easy to put together and a great crowd-pleaser. Serves six to eight.
*100g softened butter, plus extra for greasing*
*3 medium-ripe, medium-sized bananas*
*100g self-raising flour*
*50g ground almonds*
*30g cocoa powder *
*100g caster sugar*
*2 large eggs*
*75ml milk*
For the toffee sauce
*100g soft dark brown sugar*
*40g butter*
*200ml double cream*
Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Lightly butter an oven dish that's 17cm x 27cm and at least 5cm deep. Put the ingredients for the sauce in a small saucepan and heat gently, stirring often, until the butter has melted and you have a smooth brown toffee sauce. Set aside.
Peel the bananas and halve each one across the middle, then cut each in half again lengthwise, so you have four pieces from each banana. Arrange in the buttered dish, and pour over the sauce.
Mix the flour, almonds and cocoa powder, and set aside. Beat together the butter and sugar for several minutes until very pale, light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of the cocoa mixture with each, then fold in the rest of the cocoa mixture. Add the milk to form a batter with a soft dropping consistency. Dollop this over the bananas and toffee, and carefully spread it out: it should just barely cover the sauce, so don't worry if some is still visible at the edges. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the sponge is firm on top and the sauce bubbling up around the edges. Poke a skewer into the middle of the sponge, to check it's cooked through. Leave to settle for a few minutes, and serve piping hot with cold double cream. Serve it with the sponge uppermost, or flip the portions as they come out of the dish, so the bananas and toffee take top spot.
• Go to rivercottage.net for the latest news from River Cottage HQ. Reported by guardian.co.uk 12 hours ago.