Masterchef Australia seems to have an obsession with making showstopping desserts which I know because I have an obsession with watching Masterchef Australia! There’s one in particular which has a super impressive wow factor yet is actually quite easy to make when you break it down: Chocolate Bombs.
The basic concept of a chocolate bomb dessert is simple: it’s a chocolate sphere that you either break open with a spoon or, even more impressively, pour a hot sauce over, watching the chocolate slowly melt away to reveal a hidden surprise inside. This can be whatever you want to fill it with. Ice cream… a whipped mousse…cake… sweeties… or OOH even a ring for a lucky few! 😉
I decided to have a go at creating my own Masterchef inspired chocolate bomb desserts at home because a) I like a challenge and b) I got to play with vast amounts of chocolate! I was so pleased with the results that I thought I’d share the what I did on here as a little Valentine’s Day inspo.
You can either incorporate the chocolate bombs into a romantic dinner at home or, as I will likely be doing, scoff one yourself in a Treat Yo’Self moment whilst wearing your comfiest pyjamas and singing along with Bridget Jones to “All By Myself!” (Joke. Well kind of…the cats will be there too!)
Anyway, these look WAY harder to make than they actually are. You just need a smidge of patience, a few bits of equipment that you can easily pick up and strong willpower to resist the urge to eat the chocolate before it gets to the bowl.
Oh and the best part? Quite a lot of melted chocolate gets leftover which you can make into chocolate bark – so this makes two delicious treats for the price of one!
Here’s how:
Finely chop 100g of the chocolate and roughly chop the other 300g.
Line a baking tray with cling film.
Okay here’s the science bit! You have to be quite precise at melting and setting chocolate again in order to get a nice shine and a pleasing snap. This is called tempering and is just that – you bring the chocolate to some precise temperatures so that the crystals contained in it are broken down and then reformed in a controlled way.
To do this, pop the 300g of roughly chopped chocolate into a bowl. Place the bowl over a saucepan half filled with hot but not boiling water. Make sure that the bowl doesn’t touch the bottom of the saucepan. Using your thermometer, raise the temperature to 45 degrees celcius, then take the bowl off the saucepan and set it down.
Pour one third of the chocolate into a seperate bowl and set it aside somewhere warm.
Add the 100g of finely chopped chocolate to the remaining two thirds of melted chocolate and stir constantly until the temperature drops to 28 degrees celcius. This can take a bit of time, but if your kitchen is warm and you find that it gets stuck before it gets down to this temperature, my cheat method is to put it in the fridge, keeping the door open and continue to stir until it gets there!
Finally, add the reserved third of chocolate back into the bowl and stir until it reaches 30 degrees celcius. Congratulations – you just tempered chocolate!
Now comes the fun part! Pour your tempered chocolate into the spheres, rotating them until each has been lined.
Then turn the sphere tray upside down over the bowl so that the chocolate all drizzles back out again, leaving just a thin layer in each sphere. The thinner it is, the more likely your bomb will melt away theatrically when you pour over the hot sauce later!
Pop the sphere tray in the fridge to set.
Pour all that excess chocolate into the lined tray, then add whatever toppings you like. I went for crumbled honeycomb, decorative edible stars and popping candy. Then pop this try in the fridge and leave overnight to set.
Heat the caramel sauce and keep it hot and ready to pour.
Melt the knob of butter in a small saucepan and crush the digestive biscuits into a fine crumble. Little by little, add the butter until your digestives are coated but still crumbly. Using a spoon, add a pile to each plate and spread it out artistically! Sprinkle over some popping candy, then add a few edible flowers and raspberries.
Next, warm a saucepan on the stove and then lay it down upside down so that the base is facing upwards. Then very carefully, pop out two of your spheres. Don’t worry if the edges crack very slightly. Fill one half sphere with your chosen surprise. Then, take the other sphere and place it for a few seconds on to the base of the saucepan, so that the edges start to melt. Then top your filled sphere with this one, and gently press down to seal them together. Run your finger along the join to smooth it out.
Make your other spheres, then spray each with the edible paint. This looks swanky but covers a multitude of sins!
Carefully place each sphere onto your prepped plates, then serve the chocolate bomb desserts immediately with the hot pouring sauce!
…well now you can scoff all that chocolate bark can’t you?
Happy Valentine’s Day for next week everyone, whether you’re single, loved up, or somewhere in between!
