Can you top it? Coca chocolate pizza
Main Course; Serves 6
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Your support makes all the difference.The first chocolate pizza in the UK may have been created by chef Stephen Terry at the Coast restaurant in London in the late 1990s. "I experimented with a part-baked puff-pastry base," says Terry, "and placed a metal ring over the middle and filled it with a chocolate fondant. After baking, I decorated it with shavings of white chocolate and candied pistachio nuts and a blob of white chocolate ice-cream." It was a great hit. Alas, Coast is no more but Terry has moved to the Walnut Tree Inn in Wales and is planning to resurrect his chocolate pizza there.
But great minds think alike. Now the French star, Ducasse, who has collected more Michelin rosettes than anyone else, has created his own chocolate pizza (see recipe on previous page). It's on the menu at Spoon in the Sanderson hotel and in Ducasse's new book Spoon Food & Wine (Conran Octopus, £25).
His base is a rich egg-and-butter based brioche, sweetened with cocoa and sugar, and sprinkled with cocoa before baking. Three-quarters of the way through it is dribbled with cream. When it turns syrupy he puts on the final topping of chopped chocolate to melt for two minutes. Delicious.
Chocolate Pizza
Makes 6 pizzas
For the brioche dough
10g instant dried yeast
1 tablespoon lukewarm water
250g strong plain flour
8g salt
20g caster sugar
12g cocoa powder
3 eggs, lightly beaten
175g butter
For the chocolate topping
20g cocoa powder
35g muscovado or molasses sugar
25g butter
50ml single cream
50g plain chocolate with at least 70 per cent cocoa solids, chopped
Make the dough a day ahead. Mix the yeast with the water in the bowl of a food mixer. Add the flour, salt, sugar and cocoa and mix to a fairly firm dough at medium speed. Gradually add the eggs. Stop when the dough is smooth and leaves the sides of the bowl cleanly. Add the butter and stop mixing when the dough leaves the sides of the bowl cleanly again. Cover with a damp cloth and leave at warm room temperature until risen. Knead briefly and shape into a ball. Put in a large, lightly floured bowl, cover with a cloth and leave at room temperature overnight.
Roll out to 1cm thick. Cut out six 12cm-diameter discs. Place in greased non-stick tart tins. Prick lightly and sprinkle with cocoa and sugar. Dot with small flakes of butter. Leave to rise.
Bake in an oven preheated to 190C/ 375F/Gas 5 until three-quarters done and then drizzle the cream over the surface. Return to the oven. When the topping looks syrupy, add the chocolate and bake for about two minutes until melted. Serve warm.
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