Dark Chocolate Pots

It’s clichéd to talk about people licking their bowls when looking for a way to emphasize the deliciousness, the more-ish-ness of a desert. But in this case it happens to be true.

Mind you, it’s never the people that’s you’d expect; rowers in training for regattas, growing teenage boys. This is the kind of pudding that attracts the kind of ladies who consider a tomato and a peach to be a sufficient lunch, or who mention the word guilt in the same sentence as the word cheeseburger. No matter, they get their slender fingers into the pots and lick the chocolate from their manicures.

Such is the power of chocolate.

Dark Chocolate Pots (serves 4- 6 depending on the size of the pots that you are using)

2 bars of good chocolate

3/4 cup of heavy (double) cream and ¼ cup of milk

1 large organic fresh egg

• Break two bars of dark chocolate into pieces in a bowl.
• Pour the ¾ cup of heavy cream and ¼ cup of milk into a pan and heat until it’s just about to boil.
• Tip the hot cream/milk over the chocolate and count to 20.
• Whisk the melting chocolate into the cream until the color is uniform.
• Crack in the egg and whisk again. You’re not trying to whip up the mixture, just mix everything well.
• Pour the mixture into a jug, then from the jug into the little pots. Put the pots into the fridge and let them set for two hours.

(You can let them sit for longer – overnight, a day or two, not much longer because of the egg – but take them out of the fridge to allow them to warm up a little about 20 minutes before you plan to eat them.)

If You Can Make That You Can Make This:

• Sprinkle the tops with a teaspoon of sugar and either use a blow torch to brulee them or put them under a hot grill.
• Grate some white chocolate over the top.
• Put a few raspberries into the bottom of the ramekin before pouring in the chocolate.
• Finely chop some strawberries and add a few drops of good aged balsamic vinegar, leave to macerate for half an hour then top the pudding with the fruit sauce.
• Serve with stem-on strawberries or cherries for dipping.
• Scoop some cool ice vanilla cream on top.
• Serve with a jug of cold pouring cream along side.
• Buy some biscotti to dip in.

This recipe originally appeared with memories of Paris, as a teenager and on my honeymoon.