According to Wikipedia, Valrhona is a French chocolate manufacturer founded in 1922 by a French pastry chef, AlbĂ©ric Guironnet. It is today one of the leading producers of chocolate in the world and while it is sold to the mass market, the chocolate is commonly used by professional chefs. And it's expensive! These two small bars cost me almost £13 including postage - that's a lot for 140g of chocolate!
The recipe is from Galvin: a cookbook de luxe, by the Michelin-starred chefs Chris and Jeff Galvin, who run restaurants including La Chapelle, Bistro de Luxe and Galvin at Windows. I've never eaten in any of their restaurants but my boyfriend's mum knows them through her job and got me a signed copy of their recipe book for Christmas.
Unfortunately I don't think I've got time to email the publishers to ask for permission to reproduce the whole recipe here in time to enter it in this month's Alphabakes, so I will give a general overview of how I made the dessert. As usual, I altered a few bits anyway, and I didn't bother with the homemade honeycomb that was also part of the recipe, to be served with the chocolate fondant.
To begin, I heated some cream
Then break up a small quantity of the Valrhona chocolate (I actually divided all quantities given by three, as the recipe was to serve six and I only wanted it for two people) and add to some cocoa powder. Pour the heated cream mixture over the top and stir until dissolved.
Line an ice cube tray with clingfilm and pour the chocolate mixture in. Freeze overnight.
This is the interesting part of the chocolate fondant - it's what I would call a reverse fondant! Usually they are served warm with a hot liquid centre, but this dessert is served at room temperature, with a cold liquid centre!
The next day, to make the main part of the dessert - melt the rest of the chocolate in a bain marie
Heat cream and trimoline. I'd never even heard of this and had to Google it; it's a type of inverted sugar used in the baking and confectionery industry to prevent recrystallization of sugar. I couldn't find any websites showing where I could buy this - though admittedly I didn't look all that hard, because I did find a few websites saying I could use honey as a substitute so I decided to do that instead.
Add the cream then cubes of chilled butter to the chocolate mixture
Pour half into two ramekins
Place one (or two, if they are quite small!) of the frozen chocolate cubes in the middle
Pour the rest of the chocolate mixture over the top
Refridgerate - I think the recipe said for about two hours, but I found them very solid so took them out of the fridge at least an hour before we wanted to eat them. I also decorated the top with some Dr Oetker chocolate stars.
And serve! You can just see in this picture when you dig in with a spoon, the fondant is like a thick chocolate truffle texture, and there's a lovely liquid chocolate centre!
This recipe was a bit of a faff, and I'm glad I didn't try to do the honeycomb at the same time - maybe next time! It tasted absolutely delicious though and was definitely worth the effort. My boyfriend commented that he thought it would taste just as nice using any good quality chocolate like Green & Black's, and that I should make it again but not necessarily go to the lengths (and cost) of ordering the Valrhona. I'd be interested to know if anyone else has tried Valrhona chocolate what they think!
I am entering my Valrhona chocolate fondant in Alphabakes, hosted by Ros from TheMoreThanOccasionalBaker, as this month the letter is V. You've still got until the 25th to enter, then check out my site on July 1st to find out the letter for next month!
Laura Loves Cakes and Dolly Bakes are hosting a new challenge, Calendar Cakes, and their theme for this month is Euro 2012. As Valrhona chocolate is French, and France is still in Euro 2012 (so I'm told, I'm not a football fan!) then this should qualify as a suitable entry!
