Can you top it? Coca chocolate pizza

Main Course; Serves 6

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Spanish savoury sweet pizza

Can you top it?

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.