CHOCOLATE

10 OUTSTANDING RECIPES TO PULL OUT AND KEEP

*Mini melting chocolate pastries

MAKES AROUND 30. HANDS-ON TIME 20 MIN, OVEN TIME 15 MIN, PLUS CHILLING

MAKE AHEAD

Mini melting chocolate pastries

Cover and chill the unglazed, unbaked pastries for 24 hours, or freeze for 1 month. Glaze, then bake (if baking from frozen, cook for an extra 2 minutes).

• 320g pack ready-rolled all-butter puff pastry

• 100g bar dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)

• 1 medium free-range egg, beaten

• Demerara sugar to sprinkle

• Dark and white chocolate, melted separately, to decorate

1 Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/ gas 6. Unroll the pastry onto a work surface. Using a rolling pin, gently roll it out to the thickness of a £1 coin. Cut the pastry in half, widthways, then break the chocolate into its individual pieces and distribute evenly over 1 piece of pastry, leaving a 1cm gap between each piece of chocolate and at the edges.

2 Brush between the chocolate pieces with beaten egg, then lay the other piece of pastry over the top. Use your fingers to press down the pastry around the chocolate, pushing out the air.

3 Using a sharp knife, cut the pastry into even pieces, leaving a border around each chocolate piece. Put on a nonstick baking sheet, brush with beaten egg to glaze, press down the edges with a fork to seal, then chill for 30 minutes.

4 Glaze again, then sprinkle with sugar and bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Cool for 2 minutes, drizzle with melted chocolate, then serve warm.

PER PASTRY 81kcals, 5.1g fat (2.6g saturated), 1.3g protein, 7.4g carbs (3.3g sugars), 0.1g salt, 0.5g fibre

Chocolate mousse and passion fruit tart

SERVES 12-16. HANDS-ON TIME 50 MIN, PLUS CHILLING

MAKE AHEAD

KNOW-HOW

FOOD TEAM’S TIPS

Chocolate mousse and passion fruit tart

This will happily sit in the fridge overnight. Bring to room temperature before serving. Passion fruit are at their ripest when their skins have turned wrinkly.

To prevent the mousse mixture from splitting when you add the egg yolks and passion fruit at the end of step 2, make sure the melted chocolate mixture has cooled completely. If it splits, whisk in some of the cold, unwhipped cream. It may look grainy but it will come good in the fridge.

If you have a blowtorch, you can briefly run it over the top of the finished tart to give it a professional-looking glaze.

FOR THE BASE

• Sunflower oil for greasing

• 350g Oreo biscuits

• 2½ tbsp cocoa powder

• 110g unsalted butter, melted

FOR THE MOUSSE

• 200g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids), chopped into chunks

• 200g good quality milk chocolate, chopped into chunks

• 60g light muscovado sugar

• 75g unsalted butter

• 2 medium free-range egg yolks

• Pulp from 5 passion fruit, whizzed in a food processor, then sieved and seeds discarded, plus extra passion fruit pulp to serve

• 300ml whipping cream, cold

FOR THE GANACHE TOPPING

• 200g dark chocolate, at least 70% cocoa solids, broken into small pieces

• 65g unsalted butter

• 60ml (4 tbsp) liquid glucose (available in the baking aisle of supermarkets)

YOU’LL ALSO NEED…

• 25cm loose-bottomed fluted tart tin

1 To make the base, lightly oil the tart tin. Put the Oreos and cocoa powder in a food processor and whizz until finely ground. With the motor running, pour in the melted butter and whizz until the mixture resembles wet sand. Press the mixture over the base and up the sides of the tin to form a compacted crust (depending on the depth of your tin you might have some mixture left – it’s great crumbled over ice cream). Chill while you make the filling.

2 For the mousse, put the dark and milk chocolates, sugar and butter in a large heatproof bowl set over a pan of steaming (not bubbling) water. Heat gently, stirring once or twice, until melted, smooth and thick. Take off the heat, cool until at room temperature (see tips), then whisk in the egg yolks and passion fruit pulp.