There’s nothing like the whiff of a competition to send my creative juices into overdrive.
Remember my Sparkly Celebration Cake? The one where I spent literally hours in my cellar (it was the middle of summer and boiling hot – the cellar was the coolest place in the house) back bent over, attaching tiny silver balls like my life depended on it?
I didn’t win (boo! Hiss!) but the possibility of winning was enough to make me go that extra mile.
This time around, it’s a competition organised by one of Sweden’s most popular chocolate sweets – Polly.
The original Polly have a fairly thick casing of chocolate and a soft, chewy centre, coming in different flavours like mint and liquorice. They also make sea salt puffar, which are puffed corn covered in chocolate.
I really don’t care about the prize (although it is a beautiful Bosch kitchen machine which would look dang pretty sitting in my kitchen), it’s the winning that counts. We all enter comps to win. Don’t we?
Seriously though, it’s the thrill of making something for a purpose that I enjoy most, like birthday cakes.
Anyway, here’s my competition entry: a chocolate salami, full with Polly goodies. Don’t worry, there’s no meat involved, this is pure chocolate goodness and it’s dee-vine!
Chocolate salami is a popular dessert in Italy and Portugal and so named because well, it looks a bit like a salami (from the outside and also when sliced).
I’ve seen fancy ones done up with string, but the instructions for how to tie the string were harder to understand than the theory of relativity, so I left it out.
Traditionally a chocolate salami is made with crushed biscuits (cookies) and sometimes nuts (neither of which I used). The sea salt puffar made a great substitute for the biscuits, and the colours of the Polly were a pretty contrast. You can literally add whatever you like, that’s the beauty of it.
The salami is fairly large and would easily feed six people. It’s so simple to create and can be made days in advance. I think it’s quite unusual as well as being easy on the eye, I am definitely going to make a Christmas version with gingerbread and cranberries!
Save RecipeIngredients
- 100g (just under 1 cup) dark chocolate
- 100g (just under 1 cup) milk chocolate
- 50g (3 tablespoons) butter
- 1 egg
- 50g (4 tablespoons) white sugar
- 20g (1½ tablespoons) brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons coffee (omit if you don't like coffee)
- 150g bag Sea salt puffar
- 150g Polly sweets (I used Kick and mint - see notes)
- If Polly sweets are not available, use anything you like. Shortbread, digestives or Rich Tea biscuits work really well, as do nuts, so just replace the amounts I've used with something else.
Directions
~ Melt the chocolate along with the butter in a large Bain Marie.
~ Combine the egg, sugar and coffee and add to the melted chocolate mixture and regularly stirring, cook for around five minutes (just until the sugar melts). Remove from the heat and allow to cool for a while.
~ Stir in whatever it is you are using and then place the bowl in the fridge for around an hour so it sets a little.
~ Pour mixture out onto a long piece of cling-film so you have a long, rough "sausage" shape. Roll up the cling-film and gently squeeze, roll and push until your "salami" is smooth and round. Twist the ends of the cling-film tightly. Put in the fridge for another hour.
~ Remove the salami and roll again to get it as round and smooth as possible. Place back in the fridge and leave overnight.
~ When ready to serve, sprinkle icing sugar over a piece of baking paper and roll the salami in it, brushing off any excess. Cut into thick slices (mine was a little tricky to slice because the Polly sweets were very sticky).
~ Keep at room temperature (popping it back in the fridge if you don't eat it all in one go). Enjoy!
** The links for Polly used in this post have been added for the sole purpose of helping the reader. They are not affiliated nor sponsored **
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