Main ingredients
Chocolate recipes
Temperature control disguised as dessert.
Chocolate is a suspension of solids in cocoa butter, and cocoa butter is the reason it behaves the way it does — it sets hard at room temperature, melts at close to body heat, and can crystallise in six different forms of which only one is any good. That is what tempering is for. It is also why chocolate seizes when a small amount of water reaches it and behaves perfectly when a large amount does, which looks like a contradiction and is not. The recipes here say what percentage to use and why, because swapping a 70 per cent for a 50 per cent changes the sugar and the fat at once and will visibly alter a set.
4 recipes
Ptichye Moloko
An agar-set soufflé of whipped egg white, sugar syrup and butter on thin sponge, sealed under dark chocolate.
Dark Chocolate Mousse
Dark chocolate lightened with whisked egg whites and set by nothing but cocoa butter, which is why it needs no cream and no gelatine.
Dark Chocolate Brownies
Fudgy brownies built on melted dark chocolate and eggs whisked to a foam, which is what gives them their paper-thin crackled top.
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate chip cookies made with browned butter and a long overnight rest, which deepens the flavour and stops them spreading thin.