We did these over 2 days to try to distribute the fat content 🙂
The recipes come from Fondue It! 50 Recipes to Dip, Sizzle, and Savor by Silvano Franco. It’s not the best fondue cookbook out there, but I think it was in the sale section of a bookstore and I happened to see it, so there you go. What is interesting about this book is that the book also provides sides to try to prepare to dip into the fondue, not just fondue recipes. I can never get tired of cheese fondue. I got french bread, forgot to get mushrooms (but really what you see below is already too much food), cauliflower and broccoli florets, and Braeburn apples. We did the cheese in the electric fondue pot, but the chocolate fondue was one of those fondue pots you can buy where you put a tealight candle underneath it. Yeah, the tealight candle totally cannot keep it warm. If you don’t have a fondue pot, I highly recommend the ones that are first, easy to clean (especially dishwasher), and if you can do electric, that’s easiest. If not, use sterno. Tealights look romantic, but just aren’t functional.
Champagne Fondue
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of champagne or fine sparkling wine
- 7 ounces of soft crumbled goat cheese
- 7 ounces sliced camembert
- 1 tablespoon of cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons of French brandy
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Directions:
- Pour 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of champagne or fine sparkling wine into the pot and heat gently.
- Add the 7 ounces of soft crumbled goat cheese and the 7 ounces of derinded and thinly sliced camembert.
- Stir until everything melts together, do not let the mixture boil.
- In a separate bowl, dissolve 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, 2 tablespoons french brandy. Add to the fondue.
- Bring to a boil, stirring, until thickened and then season with salt and pepper to taste as desired.
The quality of the cheese you choose and the champagne are what make the difference here.
Tiramisu Fondue with sponge drops (which he made into heart cakes, aww)
- Preheat the oven to 325.
- Separate 3 eggs (yolk and egg whites): you will be using both.
- Beat 3 egg yolks with 2/3 cup superfine sugar until pale and thick.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the 2/3 cup all purpose flour and pinch of salt, then fold half into the egg yolk mixture.
- In another bowl, whisk the 3 egg whites until stiff, then fold into the egg yolk mixture with the remaining flour.
- Drop spoonfuls onto a lined, nonstick cookie sheet (or into whatever tin you want to make mini sponge cake shapes- he used hearts)
- Dust with confectioners’ sugar.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 12 minutes, until lightly golden. Remove from oven, cool slightly.
- While it’s cooling… make coffee. Pour 2/3 cup of the coffee into a fondue pot and stir in 2 3/4 ounces of confectioners sugar.
- Break in the 3 1/2 ounces semisweet chocolate and heat gently, stirring, until melted.
- Add 5 ounces of marscapone cheese and stir until melted.
This chocolate fondue was going to be accompanied by brownie and the sponge drops, which is what went best with this because the liquid actually is pretty watery which was great since the brownie and sponge hearts soaked it in, but the fruit could not keep the liquid on it- it would run off. We could have added more chocolate easily, but ended up enjoying our fruit on its own because it was fine without the chocolate.
Actually, the best part was not the fondue… it was that he drew me a card. He did it at work, and he got mad because he smeared some of the ink. How cute is that? On the other hand, he also draw PedoBear as part of the theme of the card, ha ha. We have tickets to go see Max Raabe and Palast Orchester at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall next Wednesday.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
