Cut the candied orange peel into tiny dice, put them in a bowl with the Cointreau and leave to soak for at least 15 minutes. They'll plump up and drink in the alcohol: give them a stir once or twice as you pass.
Recipes Dessert · Aphrodisiac recipe
Dark chocolate fondant cake with candied orange.
A dense, glossy cake, almost molten in the middle, where the bitterness of dark chocolate meets orange peel steeped in Cointreau. Serve it warm, with teaspoons, from the same plate if the mood takes you.
Dark chocolate fondant cake with candied orange peel, served warm for a romantic dinner for two. AI-generated illustrations.
See in Photo Comic artSome desserts bring a meal to a close and others give it a second wind. This one belongs firmly in the second camp. Dark chocolate melted with butter makes a thick, almost black batter that smells wonderful before it even reaches the oven, and the candied orange peel adds that little bittersweet spark that wakes up the tongue.
Chocolate has carried a reputation as a stimulant of the senses for centuries: people were already drinking it spiced to put some vigour into the task at hand. Orange, for its part, is an old accomplice of festive tables, a symbol of plenty and of scented skin. Add Cointreau, with its warm orange-liqueur glow that lingers in the mouth, and you get a trio playing three notes at once: bitterness, sweetness and a gentle burn.
Serve it warm, towards the end of dinner, when the conversation slows and nobody is in much of a hurry to leave the table. One plate, two spoons, a strong espresso or an ice-cold glass on the side. What you're after isn't a performance, just that slightly suspended moment when you eat slowly, looking at each other.
One plate, two spoons, a strong espresso or an ice-cold glass on the side.
Method.
10 steps · 70 minutesGenerously butter a 28 to 30 cm tart tin or round cake tin with a pastry brush or a piece of kitchen paper, paying special attention to the sides. Chill it: the butter will set and the cake will turn out all the more easily.
Preheat the oven to 180 °C with an empty baking tray inside. That tray will give the cake a blast of heat from underneath and stop the fondant from staying stodgy at the bottom.
Break the chocolate into pieces, add the 125 g of diced butter and melt gently in a bain-marie, stirring with a spatula. The bottom of the bowl mustn't touch the water. When the mixture is smooth, glossy and creamy, take it off the heat and leave it to cool for five minutes.
Separate the eggs. Whisk the yolks with 100 g of the sugar until the mixture turns pale and falls from the whisk in a ribbon, then pour it onto the warm chocolate with the Cointreau from the peel (keep the diced peel to one side) and mix vigorously until smooth and silky.
Whisk the whites with the pinch of salt, at medium speed to begin with. When they turn foamy and start to hold their shape, rain in the remaining 50 g of sugar and turn up the speed to tighten them: they should be firm and glossy, with a peak that curls over like a bird's beak on the end of the whisk.
Stir a third of the whites briskly into the chocolate to loosen the batter, then fold in the rest in two goes with a spatula, lifting the mixture from the bottom up and never stirring roughly. The batter must stay light and airy.
Shower the flour over the mixture and fold it in the same way, with wide sweeping movements, until no white streaks remain.
Fill the tin, quickly smooth the top and scatter the diced candied orange over it. Set the tin on the hot baking tray and bake for 30 to 35 minutes at 180 °C, keeping an eye on it from 25 minutes.
The fondant is ready when the edge has set and cracked slightly and the centre still wobbles a little. A knife inserted halfway between the edge and the centre should come out with a few moist crumbs, not clean. Leave to rest for 10 minutes, turn out onto the serving plate while still hot and serve warm.
Tips.
The Points G editors
Recipes proofread before publication. The virtues credited to foods owe more to tradition than to science: the pleasure of cooking for two is real enough. AI-generated illustrations.
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