Summer Roof Party - Chocolate Fondue

I wanted a wow factor item at the rooftop party, something that would help me maintain my reputation. Granted, the homemade fresh mozzarella was a start, but there was a limited supply of those and more importantly, unless I went around crowing to everyone that they were homemade (which I did), they looked ordinary.

I have this shabu shabu pot that is just a regular cheap pot with a divider in the middle, so there can be two types of soup bases for the shabu shabu. I'm constantly looking for more uses for it in part because I'm constantly looking for more uses for the little portable gas stove it sits on.

I decided that this pot and stove would be the perfect thing for a chocolate fondue. Little did I know that this decision would cause me so much stress. I decided I wanted a color contrast, so dark chocolate and white chocolate made the most sense. I bought a whole bunch of Callebaut chocolate at Whole Foods, and I also had some leftover Ghiradelli chocolate. Also in my stash of ingredients to always have on hand is chocolate. Since for this fondue I ended up going through all of my Ghiradelli reserves, I currently have Callebaut and Valrhona chocolate in the pantry.

One side ended up being Ghiradelli milk chocolate, Callebaut semi-sweet chocolate, heavy cream, butter and the last dregs of my Grand Marnier. The other side was Ghiradelli white chocolate, Callebaut white chocolate, heavy cream, butter, peppermint flavoring, and pureed fresh mint.

In the beginning, both chocolates looked disgusting. First the white chocolate looked mightily unpleasant with chunks of white floating amidst unmelted chunks of butter all swirling amongst the nasty green mint puree. The dark chocolate was melting pretty well, so that wasn't so bad. Luckily, K came with C, who was willing ot stand over the stove and just stir the two suckers. Through very careful and diligent monitoring he was able to smooth out all the lumps in the minty white chocolate.

Just as I was about to do a happy dance, the dark chocolate started to look really nasty. An oily sheen was starting to surface and the chocolate was breaking up and looking granular. I wanted to cry. It looked foul. But there was so much quality chocolate in both wells, and they both tasted good, that I couldn't bear the thought of tossing out one side to start over. We loaded up the cart and went to the roof, with me stressing all the while I was dragging the cart down the hallways and into the elevator.

We set everything up, with me running back to the pot and stirring in the hope that just pure panic and stirring would make the chocolate realize it needed to end its rebel ways and come back together with its delicious cocoa fat to form a harmonious union once more. No such luck.

Our first guests arrived, I barely looked up from the pot. When I did, I first asked if they'd be willing to stir before I shook anyone's hands. K.W. thought maybe some heavy cream would work, so I poured some in. Terrible, just terrible, it was globules of thick white cream amidst grainy dark chocolate swimming in its own fat. It was a bad version of those oil and water toys.

Then, sweet blessed mother of all things culinary and fine, the dark chocolate started looking better. The heavy cream was working! Turns out K.W. was right, all that chocolate wanted was some heavy cream. I should have known. It couldn't possibly have been a successful party of mine if at least one dish didn't have vast quantities of heavy cream.


So the chocolate fondue was a success. People loved it. For dipping they had white peaches, strawberries, cherries and bananas. I threw in a bunch of grapes just for snacking on.

One thing though, note to self, in the future, use far less chocolate. There was maybe 2/3 to 3/4 of the original amount of chocolate at the end of the day, which I ended up dumping. It was mildly devastating to spoon huge amounts of still aromatic chocolate into the trash. But the though of reserving or reusing old chocolate that had been dipped into by some 20 plus people seemed really unpleasant, and I couldn't do it.

So that was the menu: lots of wine, some savory and some sweet.