Hot Chocolate Fondant Cake

Warm, rich, hot: for Chef RD Stewart, comfort needs to be simple. As an adult, trying to recreate a beloved childhood dish of chicken pot pie with “straight-up Southern-style biscuits” showed him that you can’t mess with the taste of nostalgia. “I just don’t make it as good as my mum and grandma made it,” he says with a laugh. “I think I overcomplicate it, adding cayenne and other ingredients, even making the biscuits from scratch. I should just cheat and use Bisquick, I think that’s what they did, and it was always great!”

Winter at the Red Door Bistro allows Stewart to indulge in his love of simple French-inspired menus, using lesser-known tasty cuts and long, slow cooking techniques. “Right now, it’s good to braise,” he says. Home comforts for this busy chef include roasted chicken or simple lamb shanks. “I just want uncomplicated food when I have a day off in the winter; food that helps beat the cold,” he says.

Nothing will warm the cockles of your heart, though, like Stewart’s decadent Hot Chocolate Fondant Cake, a tribute to a classic recipe using high-quality chocolate to bring an extra level of deliciousness to this bistro favourite. “I know a lot of people don’t think about dessert when they think about comfort,” explains Stewart, “but this is so good! We use Cacao Barry Fleur de Cao 70 per cent chocolate. It’s super dense, a little on the bitter side with a roasted note, and it smells wonderfully floral.” The cake is baked in a soufflé dish and then gently flipped to unmold into a bowl on a bed of glossy raspberry coulis, garnished with fresh blueberries, powdered sugar and a sprig of mint. And the final, decadent touch: a scoop of vanilla bean gelato made by a local company, Lucia Gelato. “Sure, it’s an older recipe,” says Stewart, “but with chocolate this good, it’s a hit.”

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