An Orgy of Chocolate (and the Secret to Perfect Chocolate Curls)

Be warned.  You're likely to accrue calories just by reading this blog.  No apologies; we wanted to share some of our favorite chocolate desserts as everyone has chocolate on the brain at this time of year! 

The three desserts featured here are culled from this little book, which has become my dessert bible.  Called Everyday Chocolate : A Collection of Over 100 Essential Recipes, I bought this gem of a book for next to nothing last Summer from Marshalls.  You can buy your own used from Amazon for a mere 87cents - cheaper than a bar of chocolate...

Highlights to date include:

Millionaire's Shortbread - this was a heady confection of caramel, chocolate and buttery shortbread.  While it tasted delicious I vowed never to make it again - it required two cans of condensed milk and quite a lot of corn syrup so is too unhealthy to make except as an extra special treat. (It was good though.)

Lemon and Chocolate Tart.  My fellow baker, Keri, who normally refuses to eat chocolate when paired with any fruit or fruit flavoring relented on this dessert; Keri admitted that she actually quite liked the pairing.  

The end result was pretty impressive, but I struggled with the chocolate curls which seemed to melt before I could curl them.  Perhaps the curls in this case could best be described as chocolate shavings?

I thought this chocolate lemon tart was quite a 'grown-up' dessert. 

Several philly food lovers fans offered up suggestions for how to make curls properly, including a suggestion to drop the curls directly into a bowl of iced water so that they keep their shape.  Caroline Scala McMahon kindly provided a link to a helpful website describing how to get the best result.  See here for details...

We should have just asked Termini Bros how to get the perfect chocolate curls!

For me the best part of the chocolate lemon tart was the chocolate pastry crust, which worked out a treat.

Without further delay, here's the recipe for the Chocolate Crumble Pie:

I started to make this pie after I stumbled across a packaged Graham Cracker crust in my pantry. Cutting to the chase, the recipe below omits the pastry shell, because I substituted the shell for the cracker crust.  The recipe below only details the fudgy chocolate filling and the crumble topping, which again - lacking the correct ingredients in the pantry - I made do with what I had.  The toppings turned out perfectly with my substitutions.

Chocolate Filling:
5 fl oz heavy cream
5 fl oz milk
8oz semi sweet chocolate, chopped
2 eggs

Crumble Topping:
3 1/2 oz of brown sugar
3oz amaretto cookies ( we used ginger nut cookies instead)
3 oz toasted pecans (we didn't have these, so switched them out for some caramelized walnuts)
1 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa
4oz semi-sweet chocolate

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 375degreesF
2. Bring cream and milk to a boil.  Turn off heat and add the chocolate broken up into small pieces.  Stir thoroughly
3. Whisk eggs.  Add to chocolate mixture and ensure mixed through.  Pour into pastry shell or cracker crust
4. Bake for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and leave to set for an hour.
5. Place all the crumble topping ingredients in a food processor and chop up into chunky pieces.  Sprinkle over the pie to decorate.

Hope you enjoyed this Chocolate Fest.  We certainly had fun researching it.