By Jacoba Budden, Cape Town-based food writer. She’ll be contributing some delicious food and wine pairing suggestions to the Wines Online Blog.
South Africans are no longer permitted to use the word Port on their labels. They now make fortified wines that taste like port using the same methods that they used when they made port and that, to my mind, is just fine. They’ll just have to come up with a new word – something they can do pretty well nowadays. In all honesty, though, we have yet to see whether these young wines will last as long as the ones from Europe and for that a little time is needed yet.
Bredells Cape Vintage Reserve 1998, with its 50% Tinta Barocca content, is one of those wines that could be truly great. I had the opportunity to try some recently and whilst I am still very new to all this, I knew immediately that I’d hit the jackpot. I love the fact that I breathed in dried fruit, plums, walnuts and when I sipped this exquisite wine I got the overwhelming sense of being back in my father’s small, dusty cellar, sitting on an upside down box sipping port for the first time, quietly, so that my mother wouldn’t find out. I was, after all, only twelve.
In short – this is the perfect match to an incredibly good fondant as it is not overpoweringly sweet, has tannin that makes itself known and enough alcohol to provide that specific balance needed for the chocolate and the rich saffron cream. It’s simply the best match I can think of today.
So onto the chocolate….
Evidence of the existence of chocolate found that it was in use as early as 1100 BC. At first it was an alcoholic drink, then part of everyday life and much later on it became a luxury, even used as currency. Uses were manifold through the ages and it was used to cure diarrhoea, for tax by the Aztecs and after the Spanish had slaughtered most of the Aztecs, it became popular in Europe. It has always been scarce and good chocolate is hard to find. While many believe the good stuff comes from Switzerland or Belgium, this is not entirely correct. The good stuff comes from Hawaii. This is a simple dessert if you keep your head and the perfect end to a simple meal because it restores balance.
Ingredients:
50 g plain flour
3 g baking powder
10 g cocoa powder
100 g chocolate Lindt 75%
100 g unsalted butter, softened
2 extra large eggs
70 g caster sugar
Sauce:
25 g caster sugar
20 g cocoa powder
105 g whipping cream
Saffron filling:
5 tablespoons milk
5 g cornflour
5 tablespoons whipping cream
1 g saffron threads
45 g white chocolate to top
To serve (optional)
Vanilla ice cream
Hazlenut tuilles
Method:
Sauce:
Boil the sugar with about 50 ml water in a pot. Whisk in the cocoa powder very slowly indeed, a sprinkling at a time, ensuring it doesn’t bubble over. Once well mixed and boiling again, add cream, bring back to the boil and turn the heat down, reducing the liquid for 5 – 10 minutes very slowly, whisking occasionally until you have a thick sauce. Check the consistency by putting some on a plate. It must hold its shape and be shiny and dark.
Saffron filling:
For the filling, use a little of the milk, mix it with the cornflour and make a paste. Mix the rest of the milk with the cream and the saffron in a pan. When almost boiling, add the cornflour and bring to the boil. Boil for 1 – 2 minutes and then remove from the heat. Add the white chocolate, whisk until the chocolate has melted and pour into a container about 1,5cm deep and freeze. As soon as it has set, take pastry cutter and cut out 4 shapes and refreeze.
Fondant:
Make the fondant by mixing the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder together and sift twice through a fine sieve. Put the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water and don’t let the base touch the water until the chocolate melts. Take off the heat and stir in the softened butter. Whisk eggs and sugar together until pale and mix into the chocolate mixture with a spatula. Slowly fold in the flour and cocoa powder until it is incorporated.
Use four pastry rings (6 cm deep, 5cm in diameter) and lay them on a tray. Grease them well with butter and line them with a buttered parchment paper cut 2 cm above the rim. Spoon in the mixture halfway up each ring, then put one of the discs of saffron filling (kept in the freezer) on top. The cold disc will set the walls of the fondant around it. Put the rest of the mixture over the top up to three quarters of the height of the ring. Don’t fill it any higher because it will rise in the oven. Keep this in the fridge for two hours until the fondant is completely cold and solid.
Preheat the oven to 180 C and put in the fondants in for 9 minutes until they have risen and got some colour.
Remove, place on the plate and serve with ice cream and a hazelnut crisp.
Don’t forget your glass of port.
