After the recent development of an obsession with Rick Stein and Thailand, my parents bought a recipe book called “J. Sheekey Fish”, based on the London restaurant by the same name which has received oodles of praise from Rick Stein himself. One day when my father was thumbing through the dessert section, he was blown away by the idea of this “Chocolate Bombe”. I knew at that moment I had to make it for him on his birthday.

For this recipe, you will need a rather unusual kitchen item called a Metal Half Sphere (measuring 8cm in diameter). Really, you want to get two of these just to make your life easier. I was surprised by how difficult they were to find, but eventually tracked them down on the Nisbet’s website though not at a particularly low price. If YOU, the reader, manage to find them elsewhere and cheaper, please do share your find in the comment section below!

You will also need a good glazing brush, but these are much easier to find. Don’t use a new-fangled rubber/silicone one they are terrible as nothing stays on them. Go for traditional here.

Ingredients

• 350g of dark chocolate (no need to get fancy, I used storebrand)
• Around 3 tablespoons of good butter
• Raspberry ice cream (or flavour of your choice, I just had a raspberry theme going on…)

Kiss you day goodbye, we’re making Chocolate Bombes…

1. Half fill a sauce pan with water and pop it on the hob on a medium/low heat. Place a heat proof bowl on top (actually I used a Pyrex jug, which is a bit risky to the chocolate what with it touching the bottom of the pan, but it seemed to work ok).
2. Break your chocolate up into pieces and add about 1/3 to your bowl. Stir gently as it melts. Add 1 table spoon of butter. Not only will this keep a nice shine on the chocolate when it sets, but it will also make it loads easier to get from your mould.
3. Once the chocolate has melted, keep the heat low and use the basting brush to paint a layer of chocolate inside your metal half sphere (occasionally stir the melted chocolate with a spoon, to ensure you get no burnt lumpy bits dancing around inside it. Continue doing this through-out this entire process). Once you have evenly covered the metal half sphere, put it in the freezer for 5 minutes. While it’s in there, paint your other metal half sphere in the same fashion and place in the freezer.
   
4. 5 minutes later, retrieve from the freezer and repeat.
   
5. 5 minutes later, retrieve from the freezer and repeat, but this time try to make it quite thick on the rim. It might not look pretty at this stage, but that’s going to be on the inside anyway and I promise it will make your life much easier later on. I should add here, that if you purchase the recipe book referenced above, there will be no mention of a rim or any other cheats for that matter, but instead total perfection.
6. Place your chocolate-coated metal half spheres in the fridge (not freezer) for one hour.Now for the absolutely horrendously terrifying part.
7. Heat the oven to something VERY low. About 100c. Put a non-stick tray in there.
8. Fetch your ice cream and get a big scoop READY on the spoon. I can’t emphasise how important timing is here. You need to be super quick and prepared.
9. Remove your chocolate half spheres from the metal half spheres and take 1.2 seconds to admire the work you’ve done so far, and pray a little that it’s not all about to be destroyed.
10. Remove your tray from the oven. Take one of your chocolate half spheres and place it RIM SIDE DOWN on to this warm baking tray for about 3 seconds and all in one quick movement remove it from the tray and place it on your work surface RIM SIDE UP and pop your prepared ice cream scoop inside and place the other one on the tray (on a different spot to avoid sticking) RIM SIDE DOWN. Then take that one from the tray and place it RIM SIDE DOWN on top of the other one, sealing the two melted rims together. Run your finger around it gently, so the seal is neat and barely visible. Well done. Now, this is really the point you’re supposed to serve it, the reason for which is clear further down, but the only way you’re going to pull that off is if you have 2 x metal half spheres per person dining. There’s not REALLY any harm in doing what I did, which is:
11. Gently place your now completed chocolate sphere in an airtight freezer bag and put it in the freezer. Repeat the entire 10 steps above, adding more chocolate/butter to the melt bowl, until you have enough chocolate spheres for everyone.

Serving your Chocolate Bombes

Traditionally, these should be served with a hot chocolatey sauce. This is then poured over the bombe when it’s served, creating a small opening at the top. There’s a really lovely picture of this happening in the J. Sheekey book.

For me, this didn’t quite work out in the way intended. It was a delicious sauce (if I may say so) and served VERY hot, but still wasn’t quite enough to break through the chocolate. This could be down to two reasons:

• The step where you place this on hot baking trays made me rather nervous, and I didn’t trust myself not to break them so I made them slightly thicker than the norm (ordinarily just two layers of chocolate)
• These were served at a frozen temperature, rather than the fridge temperature they ought to be.

What harm did this cause? None! We just cracked them open with the back of our spoon instead, much like you would your morning dippy egg. The sauce still made a delightful addition, even if it wasn’t the source of opening the bombe (good pun there, eh?). You can get creative and serve which ever sauce you desire, but I made my own special RUM CHOCOLATE SAUCE.

Ingredients

• Dark Rum
• Melted dark chocolate (just use what’s left over from your bombe making, which I guess is about 60g)
• A tablespoon of butter
• A splash of milk
• Raspberry syrup

It’s Easy…

1. Return to your jug of melted dark chocolate which is still on the hob that I hope you’ve kept stirring so you have no lumpy burnt bits…Otherwise, melt down about 60g of dark chocolate
2. Sploosh in about 50ml of dark rum and stir
3. Add the butter. Melt it in while gently stirring.
4. Pour in about 100ml of milk. Stir.
5. Finally squeeze in 2 tablespoons of the raspberry syrup. Stir.
6. You can now transfer this to its own small sauce pan. Before serving, turn the heat up until it’s boiling. As soon as it’s boiling get it straight off the heat and into a nice serving jug.

I also used the raspberry syrup to make a nice spiral on the plate I was serving it on. Not only did this look pretty, but it was a sneaky way of securing the bombe, making sure it didn’t roll off and smash all over the floor as it was carried to the table.

A few fresh raspberries sprinkled around the edge finished the look. Serve, enjoy , relax.

This was the dessert I made for my Dad’s birthday in 2014. Still hungry? Check out the starter and main course for good measure!