Happy Valentine's Day! Red Wine Chocolate Fondue

Happy St Valentine's Day!

This year, Simon and I entertained our good friend and DnD partner Dean. We played some games, drank some wine, and also had a fabulous fondue platter of fruit, sweets, crisps, pastries, and the main star: red wine chocolate fondue.

Making this is very easy and needs only three ingredients: 3 parts (in weight) of plain or dark chocolate, 1 part whipping cream, and 1 part red wine. I used 12 ounces (340 grammes) of chocolate and 4 ounces each (115 grammes) of wine and cream. It's best to use a dry wine to complement the darkness of the chocolate and the richness of the cream.

Simply cut the chocolate up and put it in a bowl, then heat the cream to boiling point either in saucepan on the stove, or in the microwave. Pour the cream over the chocolate and allow to sit for about two minutes before mixing thoroughly. Then, heat the wine in a similar way just up to boiling point; do not boil! Pour this into the chocolate and cream mixture and voilà! Red wine chocolate fondue.

On my platter I served:

• Strawberries
• Black and white grapes
• Raspberries
• Sugared ring doughnuts, cut into sixths
• Marshmallows
• Pretzels
• Digestive biscuits
• Thick cut cheese and onion crisps

I presented the platter with a pot of cocktail sticks for us to eat the food, but if you have some fancy fondue forks they would work nicely too! You can serve whatever you like on the platter, but I think a good mix of fruit, sweet pastries/cakes/biscuits, savoury snacks, and marshmallows works very well.

So, enjoy this year's celebration of the patron saint of lovers, beekeepers, and epileptics!