St Emilion au chocolat
This luxurious dessert from Jeremy Lee is made by soaking crushed amaretti biscuits in sherry, and then topping them with a rich chocolate cream, and another layer of crunchy biscuits. It’s the perfect amalgamation of sophistication and excess.
This recipe is taken from Cooking: Simply and Well, for One Or Many by Jeremy Lee (HarperCollins, £30) Photography: Elena Heatherwick
Jeremy says: 'This was on the menu at Bibendum when I first started cooking there and has remained a constant companion ever since. The recipe remains pretty loyal to the original Elizabeth David version. St Emilion is known not just for wine but also for macarons, which here are steeped in cognac and set into both the top and bottom of an extraordinary cake that is the very essence of chocolate – rich, elegant and surprisingly light. I use Amaretti di Saronno macarons, dried fully, which I buy from the few surviving Italian shops in Soho such as I Camisa & Son and Lina Stores, or the Algerian Coffee Stores, or buy online, and with more than just a scent of bitter almonds from the kernels of apricots they are a perfect foil for cognac and chocolate. PS: As a good-quality brandy or rum for that matter becomes more costly, a thought is to make use of amontillado, a sherry that delights with chocolate. The result is most pleasing.'
Ingredients
Metric
Imperial
- 16 amaretti biscuits, or macarons
- 75ml of sherry, or cognac
- 55g of unsalted butter
- 115g of caster sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 200ml of full-fat milk
- 225g of dark chocolate, at least 70% cocoa solids, chopped into small shards
Method
Heap the macarons in a bowl and smash them into a coarse crumb. Strew two-thirds of the crumb in the bottom of a handsome dish. Put the remaining third to one side. Libate the coarsely crumbed macarons in the dish liberally with two-thirds of the sherry or cognac, putting to one side the remaining third
- 16 amaretti biscuits, or macarons
- 75ml of sherry, or cognac
Place the softened butter and sugar in a bowl and mix thoroughly until pale. Add the egg yolk and mix well
- 55g of unsalted butter
- 115g of caster sugar
- 1 egg yolk
Pour the milk into a pan, place over a moderate heat and bring to a simmer. Remove the pan from the heat, tip in the chocolate and stir until the chocolate has melted completely, becoming smooth. Pour this on to the beaten butter, sugar and egg yolk. Mix this all together thoroughly. Decant the chocolate mixture on to the macarons drenched in cognac
- 200ml of full-fat milk
- 225g of dark chocolate, at least 70% cocoa solids, chopped into small shards
Strew the remaining macarons atop the chocolate, pour over the remaining cognac and press the macarons so very gently with your fingertips into the surface of the chocolate. Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours, or, better still, a few days in advance
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