Chocolate Cambridge Cream Recipes

Steps:

• Dust a surface with flour and roll out your pastry to a bit bigger than an 8 1/2-by-11-inch sheet of paper. Brush with the egg yolk and scatter the rest of the ingredients over, being subtle with the allspice and cinnamon. Roll the pastry up tightly like a Swiss roll to make a long sausage shape. With a knife, cut across the sausage into 1-inch (2 1/2-centimeter) pieces. Take 8 pieces aside, and freeze the rest of the pastry for a rainy day.
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C/gas 6).
• Turn all the pieces of pastry swirl-side up and flatten them slightly. Dust the surface of your pastry with flour, then roll each piece out into a thin circle (around the size of a teacup saucer). Even I don't have proper pastry molds at home, so I just grease and flour the outsides of 8 of my glass tumblers. Then, I place a circle of pastry on top of each tumbler, pleating, pinching and hugging the pastry around them.
• Place the tumblers on a baking tray, pastry at the top, and put in the preheated oven until crisp and golden, around 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and, while still hot, take a tea towel and pat the slightly raised top of the pastry back down on to the flat bottom of the tumbler ? giving you a flat base again. Allow to cool, and carefully remove the pastry cases from around the tumblers.
• Fill your pastry cases with the chocolate filling: Place the double cream, sugar, and pinch of salt in a pan and bring to the boil. As soon as the mixture has boiled, remove from the heat, and add the butter and chocolate. Stir until it has completely melted. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, stirring in the cold milk until smooth and shiny. Sometimes this mixture looks like it has split. Allow the mixture to cool down a bit more, and whisk in a little extra cold milk until smooth. Scrape all the mixture into the cooked pastry shells. Shake to even it out and allow to cool for around 1 to 2 hours, until it is at room temperature. Dust with the cocoa powder. Ultimately the pastry should be short and crisp and the filling should be smooth and should cut like butter.

Steps:

• Combine half-and-half, sugar, cocoa and vanilla in a blender; process on low until smooth. Stir in heavy cream. Freeze in an ice cream freezer according to manufacturer's directions.

Steps:

• On a lightly floured work surface, roll pate sucree to 1/8-inch thickness. Fit into a 9-inch pie dish. Trim edges, leaving a 1-inch overhang. Tuck overhang under dough so edges are flush with rim, and crimp edges. Lightly prick bottom of dough with a fork. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line dough with parchment, and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until edges begin to look dry, 20 to 22 minutes. Carefully remove weights and parchment. Bake until crust is darker around edges and bottom looks dry, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack. (Chocolate crust can be stored overnight.)
• Whisk together sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a small bowl. Heat milk and chocolate in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until chocolate melts.
• Whisk 1 cup hot milk mixture into sugar mixture until smooth. Whisk milk-sugar mixture into the remaining milk mixture in the saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until bubbling and thick, 4 to 5 minutes total (about 2 minutes after it comes to a boil).
• Whisk yolks in a medium bowl until combined. Pour in milk mixture in a slow, steady stream, whisking until completely incorporated. Return mixture to saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it just begins to bubble, 1 to 2 minutes.
• Remove from heat, and stir in vanilla. Let custard cool in saucepan on a wire rack, whisking occasionally, for about 10 minutes.
• Pour custard into chocolate crust. Press plastic wrap directly on surface of custard. Refrigerate until custard filling is chilled and firm, at least 4 hours (or overnight).
• Spread caramel whipped cream over pie. Using a vegetable peeler, scrape chocolate block at a 45-degree angle to make a small mound of shavings, and sprinkle over whipped cream. Serve immediately, or refrigerate and serve within 2 hours.