I've got an Itch that Needs to be Fixed...

I love this time of year for various reasons, the smell of fresh Spring flowers, the chances to wear your own rendition of the new S/S collections, the upheaval of traditional S/S food and more besides. The main reason for me is the various chances of consuming chocolate, Valentines Day, Pancake Tuesday, Easter, My Birthday....it's endless! However Himself may see this as counteractive to my "I'm going to get fit again" regime (It's a viscous dictators regime where he rules supreme and forces me to take stairs.)

Moving on, last night I had an unbelievable chocolate craving after flicking through a few cook books of mine. So in honor of V-Day and all that is indulgent about the day, I'm gonna turn chef one last time for V-Day.

Dark Chocolate Soup

with Cinnamon Croutons

Who doesn’t like soup?!

Makes 8

Ingredients

Dark Chocolate Soup

1/2 cup of sugar

1/4 cup of water

pinch of salt

6 cups of half and half ( half milk, half double cream)

2 tsps instant espresso powder

24oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate finely chopped

8 small scoops vanilla ice-cream

Cinnamon Croutons

1 loaf of bought pound cake

1/2 cup of sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 cup of unsalted, melted butter

Soup

1. Combine the sugar and the water in a large sauce pan over a medium heat. Cook, gently swirling the pan occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and starts to change colour.
2. Increase the heat to high and boil until the syrup turns a deep amber colour, 4-5 mins. NB: watch very carefully because this can burn quickly!Immediately remove from the heat and add the salt and half-and-half, the carmel will start hissing at you.
3. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil, stirring to dissolve the caramel in the half-and-half, about 2mins.
4. Remove from the heat and add the espresso and chopped chocolate, stirring until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.
5. Divide into 8 shallow soup bowls. Carefully place a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the centre of each bowl and float 4 pound cake croutons around each scoop of ice-cream.
6. Serve Immediately.

Croutons

1. Preheat the grill.
2. Cut a razor thin slice from both ends of the pound cake to reveal the interior.cut the trimmed loaf croswise into 8 equal slices.
3. Trim each slice to form perfect, uniform squares. Stir the sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl.
4. Brush both sides of the croutons with the melted butter and sprinkle generously with the cinnamon-sugar.
5. Place the slices on a large baking tray and grill until the sugar on top starts to bubble and turn brown, 1-2mins. Remove from the oven, turn over and grill the other side for a further 1-2 mins.
6. Transfer the sheet to a wire rack to cool, use a serrated knife to carefully cut each slice into 4 equal squares.