Chocolate Salami (or A Little Chocolate Never Hurts, part 3) (Food and Crafts for All Occasions)

Even though this salami is made of chocolate and cookies, it looks indistinguishable from the real one, doesn’t it? Besides being a great conversation piece, it’s also absolutely delicious and ridiculously easy to make.

It was one of my favorite desserts when I was a kid. My friends and I would gather at somebody’s kitchen and make it ourselves because the recipe was so simple we didn’t need any guidance from adults. And we adored the very idea of it - chocolate sausage! We laughed our silly heads off just thinking about it.

Years later, I seemed to completely forget about this fun treat and was very surprised when Giuseppe “Pino” Casalese, a fabulous Italian chef I was lucky to work with several years ago, mentioned it in our conversation about easy-to-make desserts. As it turned out, Italians have the same dessert with the same name, salame al cioccolato, with a variety of recipes going pretty much along the same lines as the Russian ones. Some use egg yolks; others condensed milk. Some suggest using only cookies, others recommend adding nuts and dried fruits. Some insist on using melted chocolate, others say that cocoa powder is better. Adult versions may contain alcohol like Amaretto, orange or raspberry liqueurs, Marsala wine or other alcohols.

My currently favorite recipe consists of shortbread cookies, egg yolks, butter, lots of good quality cocoa powder and Amaretto, Italian almond liqueur. Very simple, quite elegant, and absolutely scrumptious. And judging by the reaction of my friends, chocolate salami can be as entertaining for adults as it is for kids.

You will need:

4 oz/114 g Lorna Doone Cookies or other crispy, but tender shortbread cookies
1 Large egg yolk
2 oz/60 g white sugar (about 1/3 cup)
2.5 oz/70 g butter, melted and slightly cooled down
1 oz/30 g good-quality cocoa powder (1/4 cup)
1 tsp vanilla extract (alcohol-free from Trader Joe’s has a milder and better flavor)
1-1.5 Tbsp Amaretto or other liqueur to your taste
Optional: sugar powder

Break the cookies into very small pieces. Do it with your hands, do not use a food processor because it will grind rather than break the cookies.

With a mixer or a whisk beat the egg yolk with sugar until creamy and pale yellow.

Add butter, vanilla, Amaretto or other liqueur, and cocoa powder and mix well.

Add the cookie pieces and stir gently, but thoroughly with a spatula.

Put the “dough” on a piece of plastic wrap in the shape of a log. Roll it up, making sure that the wrap doesn't get inside the log.

Now with your hands roll it on a table back and forth, forming it into a sausage about 10 inches long and about 1.5-1.7 inches thick. Twist the ends of the wrap to tighten the mixture up and to make its surface more even and smooth all around. You can secure the ends with a kitchen twine or simply tuck them under.

Put the salami into the refrigerator and chill at least 2 hours, better overnight. Right before serving, unwrap and slice thinly on the bias. It is best if eaten immediately since it has a tendency to soften if kept at room temperature.

Optionally, you can dredge the salami in sugar powder after it hardens in the fridge to imitate the pellicle, a white natural coating that forms on dry salami.