Mazarin cakes with chocolate glaze

Makes 24

You will need silicone (or regular) mini-muffin moulds, about 3cm in diameter.

— 250g salted butter, softened, plus more for the moulds

— 250g marzipan, at least 60

per cent almonds, grated

— 250g caster sugar

— 5 medium eggs

— 70g plain flour

— 200g dark chocolate, broken into pieces, plus 50g more, finely chopped, to decorate

Preheat the oven to 190C/ gas mark 5. If you have regular (rather than silicone) minimuffin moulds, you will need to butter them lightly.

For the cakes, beat the grated marzipan with the sugar in a bowl (you will get the best result using an electric mixer), then add the butter and beat until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between additions, until the mixture is even and smooth, then fold in the flour.

Transfer the mixture to a piping bag and pipe into the mini-muffin moulds (or just use a spoon if you don’t have a piping bag). Fill the moulds to just below the rim.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, then remove and leave to cool in the moulds.

Now to temper the chocolate. For this you will need a sugar thermometer. Melt 140g of the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water; make sure the bowl does not touch the water.

When the chocolate has reached 50C, remove the pan from the heat and add the remaining 60g chocolate. Mix well until melted. Gently heat in the same way as before until the chocolate reaches 31C. Now it is ready to use. Keep the chocolate’s temperature at a steady 31C while you are working with it.

Take the cakes out of the moulds, dip the top of each one in the tempered chocolate and sprinkle with chopped chocolate to decorate.