As Yotam says this week, chocolate pairs successfully with all kinds of ingredients. It also shows off any number of drinks, too. In fact, if you can think of an ingredient that works with or in chocolate – cherries, say – you can easily arrive at a similar drink pairing (cherry brandy or a sweet red wine, in this instance).
Much depends on how intense the chocolate flavour is, and whether the dessert is hot or cold. A dense molten chocolate pudding, for example, is harder to match than a white or milk chocolate mousse (or a milk chocolate Easter egg, for that matter).
With an intensely chocolatey cake such as Yotam’s brownie, you need something strong and sweet like a marsala – Marks & Spencer does an incredibly well-priced half-bottle of Martinez Marsala Riserva Dolce 5-year-old (8% abv) for £6.50 that would also go well with a chocolately tiramisu, as would De Bortoli’s dense, treacley Show Liqueur Muscat (£13.99 Tesco, £14.99 Nickolls & Perks and other independents; 18% abv), from Australia. Dark chocolate also goes brilliantly with both cognac and rum: try an indulgent sip of Don Papa Small Batch Rum (£30 Majestic; 40% abv), from the Philippines, with its lovely waft of spice and orange peel.
Yotam’s warm chocolate and hazelnut sauce with vanilla ice-cream would certainly spell death for any dessert wine. If you’re using Frangelico in the sauce, you could always offer Frangelico shots alongside, but I’d be more inclined to go for a super-sweet PX (pedro ximenez) sherry. The best one I’ve tasted recently is the delicious, raisiny Delicado Pedro Ximenez, which is aged for eight years: it’s an exclusive from Waitrose (£14.99 for 50cl; 15% abv), though it’s available in only 123 branches.
If you’re serving fruit with a chocolate dessert, take your cue from that. I recently had a semi-frozen milk chocolate cake with raspberries that was a brilliant match with a sweet red brachetto d’acqui from Piedmont called Rosa Regale (£12.89 by the case allaboutwine.co.uk, £13.45 slurp.co.uk; 7% abv). A medium-sweet sparkling rosé would work, too.
And chocolate in savoury dishes, such as chilli chicken and cinnamon? On the face of it, that’s an even tougher call, but look again at the recipe and you’ll see it features less than an ounce of the dark stuff, and is much more about the chillies, cinnamon and brandy. As a result, I’d go for a smooth, rich cabernet or a zinfandel: Aldi’s incredibly well-priced Estevez Cabernet Sauvignon-Carmenère 2013 (£4.99; 13.5% abv) should do the trick; it would go a treat with Easter lamb, too.
