Category: Recipes, Baking, Desserts | Post by: Andrea Wong
Did you know that August 10 is Duran Duran Appreciation Day? Neither did I! When Chris from Mele Cotte tweeted that August 10 is Duran Duran Appreciation Day, I was interested... very interested! Chris suggested that we do a blog post to celebrate this special day - what a fantastic idea, it'll be an international, food Duran Duran tribute!
As a giggly almost-teen back in the 80s, I loved Duran Duran. Us girls used to jump around singing to Wild Boys, Rio and even Girls on Film (not fully understanding what the song was really about). We would pour over the coveted Duran Duran picture book and have deep and meaningful conversations about the latest video and how what our favourite Duran looked in it. (Roger Taylor was my fav).
I'm proud of my Duranie status and happily turn up the car radio and sing long (badly) when I hear a Duran Duran song - poor Mr H, he suffers sometimes!
Yes, I think that Duran Duran still has an effect on me, turning me into that giddy little girl again. But that's ok, I quite enjoy those trips back down memory lane.
My contribution to Mele Cotte's Duran Duran Appreciation Day is taken from the name of their latest album - yes, they released an album as recent as 2007 - Red Carpet Massacre. Although the Duran Duran of the mid 80s is my favourite version of the group, the title of this album had me thinking.
I was thinking something red, kind of runny and slightly gory-looking. One of my favourite desserts, chocolate fondant meets several of these criteria. And served with a raspberry coulis, it seemed perfect!
I used the Gordon Ramsay chocolate fondant recipe, which is quite easy and added a little red touch to suit the theme of this post. The red carpet is the smear of the raspberry coulis and the massacre is the insides of the fondant oozing out onto the red carpet. Gory!
There was just a hard-core group of three food bloggers celebrating this year's Duran Duran Appreciation Day. Here's a list of the other posts:
Introducing the event - Mele Cotte (Chris, Georgia, USA)
Cherry ice cream smile - Food Finery (Tiffany, Utah, USA)
Bloody Mary spritzer - Mele Cotte
"Thank you" Duran Duran! - Mele Cotte
Do you want to make something to help celebrate? What would you make?
Chocolate fondant with raspberry coulis
Serves 2
Adapted from Gordon Ramsay's recipe
Ingredients
50g dark chocolate (I used Whittaker's 72% cocoa dark ghana)
50g unsalted butter
1 egg
1 egg yolk
60g caster sugar
50g flour
10 raspberries (frozen is fine)
Directions
- Heat the oven to 160ºC and butter two ramekins (about 10cm diameter), then dust the insides with a little cocoa powder, shaking out the excess
- Put the chocolate and butter in a heat-proof bowl and place it over a pot of boiling water
- Simmer the water gently and allow the chocolate and butter to melt without stirring. Take the bowl off the pot and stir until the butter and chocolate are combined.
- Whisk the egg, egg yolk and sugar in a mixing bowl until pale and fluffy
- Stir the chocolate mixture into the egg and sugar
- Sift in the flour and fold gently until just combined
- Pour mixture into the two ramekins and put 5 raspberries on top
- Bake for 12 minutes
- Allow the fondants to cool slightly and turn out of the ramekins
Serve immediately with raspberry coulis and whipped cream.
Raspberry coulis
Ingredients
1 cup raspberries (frozen is fine)
4 tsp sugar
Directions
- Blend the raspberries in a food processor or stick blender until smooth
- Pass the raspberries through a fine sieve to remove the seeds
- Heat the raspberries gently with the sugar and stir until the sugar has dissolved