St Emilion au chocolat

High summer, and the weight of the heat bears down on the weight of the heat in the kitchen - and the duty of the continuous provision of meals for hungry holiday-making guests and family. Oh, for a break! To dip in the pool and river without a care for what will be put on the table at lunch or at supper. 

What we need at this time of year is food that is quick to prepare. Of course, the markets are filled with easy solutions: plump tomatoes ready to burst their juicy seams, crisp salad leaves, endless piles of strawberries that only cry out for a dribble of cream or a sprinkle of sugar. It’s not hard to put together a mouthwatering plate of vegetables, a roast chicken, a grilled fish. But at the back of the mind is a thought that says, What can we have that is even more celebratory but easy to make so I can retire to somewhere cool with a book for the afternoon yet impress the table?

Let me propose the St Emilion au chocolat. It’s a cross between a Petit Pot de Chocolat and a chocolate mousse and a blast from the past, first introduced to the British by Elizabeth David’s seminal 1950s cookbook, French Country Cooking. This was the book that taught so many post-war British wives how to cook at a time when olive oil’s only source was the chemist, where it was sold as a cure for earache, and those who had not travelled abroad had never met an aubergine, an artichoke, and so much more.

A different view of the St Emilion’s origins has it that it was George Perry-Smith, whose restaurant, The Hole in the Wall in Bath, launched a culinary revolution in the 1950s. It’s said he discovered a recipe for it on a box of matches while travelling around France. He brought the recipe back and put it straight on his menu. Lovely image. I suspect it’s more likely, however, that Elizabeth David’s publishers sent him an advance copy for a quote or review. Variations have since been developed by other chefs, some of whom add a dash of coffee.

You probably already know the importance of using a chocolate with a high cocoa butter content but you may not know why. Not so long ago, most bittersweet and semisweet chocolates available to home cooks contained less than 60 percent cacao, and recipes were developed accordingly. Now that supermarkets sell bars with a wide range from 50 percent to over 70 percent cacao, recipes have altered to specify what should be used for what. The higher the cacao percentage, the lower the chocolate’s sugar content. Get the percentage wrong and your cake, for example, might become dry and crumbly and taste bitter, or your chocolate sauces split and curdle, so it’s important to use what you’re told. 

On the plus side, as well as tasting more intensely chocolate-y, 70 percent dark chocolate contains higher antioxidants, fibre, potassium, calcium, copper, and magnesium, so feel free to consider it a health food and have a cube a day, as some in the medical profession recommend.

Because it’s so rich, this recipe will serve around 8

200g 70% dark chocolate
225ml milk
100g butter
100g caster sugar
1 large egg yolk
150g almond macaroons or ratafia biscuits
Brandy

Break the chocolate into pieces and let it melt in the milk in a small pan over a moderate heat. You must absolutely not let it come to the boil. Once melted, stir it to allow it to become thick and custardy.

With an electric beater, whizz up the butter and sugar in a basin till light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk. Mix in the chocolate custard. Lightly crumble up the macaroons (but not to a powder) and put half of them in the bottom of a china or glass dish. Sprinkle them with enough brandy to dampen them. Pour over half the chocolate custard. Distribute the rest of the crumbled macaroons, a little more brandy, then the rest of the chocolate. Leave to set overnight in the fridge.

If you want a lighter, more moussey-y version, use 4 eggs, separated. Add the yolks to the chocolate custard then whip the whites to soft peaks. Fold them into the chocolate mixture with a metal spoon, then continue with the recipe.

This column written by Julia Watson originally appeared in the August 2022 edition of  The Bugle.