Chocolate salami (salame di cioccolato) is the easiest Christmas dessert there is to make. There isn’t much work involved; even the oven can stay turned off. I usually use the same recipe you can find on Giallo Zafferano, but this time I mixed it up a little with a recipe from the book At Elizabeth David’s Table, where she calls it torrone molle (lit. soft nougat). All you need is 20 minutes of your time and patience, as it is a lot more delicious if made a day before you want to serve it. Despite being so simple, it is always a huge success, and I constantly get guests asking me to have a piece to take home. Consider it if you are out of ideas or time for a dessert for your NYE party, but also keep it in mind for any occasion.

David’s recipe uses the same amount for all the solid ingredients, but I have used a bit less sugar because I don’t like it when chocolate desserts are too sweet. Also, she uses cocoa, and while I much prefer a good dark chocolate bar to melt, it still gives a soft texture.

For up to eight people.

Ingredients:
175g butter
175g dark chocolate
175g ground almonds
100g sugar
175g plain biscuits such as Petit Beurre or Rich Tea (broken into almond-sized pieces)
1 whole egg and 1 yolk

Step 1: Melt the butter and the chocolate together using the bain-marie method. Place it in a big bowl and stir in the ground almonds.

Step 2: Melt the sugar in a saucepan with a little water over a low heat and add it to the chocolate mixture, then stir in the eggs. Finally, incorporate the biscuits making sure you use gentle movements, in order for them not to crumb.

Step 3: If you want to give it the salami look, wrap the mixture in a sheet of baking paper in order to give it the cylindrical shape you want. Then wrap the salami in foil before putting it in the fridge for at least three hours before serving it. If you are not too fussed about the salami shape and you would rather give it nougat shape, place it into an oiled rectangular loaf tin or a cake tin with a removable base and put it in the fridge. Turn it onto a dish to serve in slices. Let me know if you try this recipe. In the meantime, happy new year from Blender and Basil!