Soon, it’ll be Christmas and I had to share with you a recipe for the occasion. Funny enough, I’m not a huge fan of this time of the year, maybe because it’s cold and dark early in the day, maybe we are hammered with commercials to buy more, always more. Nevertheless, I have amazing memories with the end of the year and cooking is one of them. Whether it’s for choosing a menu, for setting up the dinner table or for eating all those wonderful dishes, Christmas is a moment when we all sit around the table and share. Growing up in different countries of the globe, Christmas with my family has never been ‘classic’: it can be Venezuelian food or Indian or even Scandinavian…there is no limit to our family’s imagination. My chocolate and speculoos fondant is not ‘classic’ either. First of all, this dessert is light and healthy with good vegan ingredients. Then, it mixes some speculoos biscuits (one Dutch specialty) already published on my blog with some melted dark chocolate mixed with coconut milk. You can unleash your imagination to make this fondant so pretty! I’ve used some speculoos and some icing sugar. Happy Holidays to you all !Ingredients: For the speculoos
- 2 1/4 cup of spelt flour
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 1tsp cinnamon
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 cup melted coconut oil
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
For the chocolate fondant
- 350g dark chocolate (70%)
- 100ml coconut milk
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 150g de ‘pralin’ (super chopped hazelnuts)
Recipe:
- Pre-heat your oven to 350°F
- In a bowl, mix all the ingredients till you get a nice big non too sticky ball
- On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough and use cookie cutters to make your desired speculoos shapes. One advice: you can directly use the oven baking tray so you don’t damage your cookies when cutting and moving them to the baking dish. You’ll just have to remove the non desired dough with a knife
- Bake the cookies till they are golden (around 20 to 30 minutes).
- Leave the speculoos to cool down
- Meanwhile, melt the chocolate using a bain marie
- Once well melted, add the coconut milk and stir well
- Add the chopped hazelnuts and stir well again
- Cover th e inside of a rectangular pan with cling film (leave some extra film out of the pan, it will help you unmold it when cold)
- Cover the bottom of the pan with a first layer of chocolate, then add some speculoos, then some chocolate and so on and so forth (keep some speculoos for the decoration of the cake). Flatten the last chocolate layer with the back of a tbsp as it will be the base of your fondant once you turn it upside down
- Leave to cool in the fridge for 3h. Remove the fondant from the pan by pulling on the plastic film
- Flip the fondant on a plate and decorate as you wish (I’ve used some speculoos and icing sugar) before serving it with a sharp and clean knife