Wondering what to do with your leftover chocolate from Easter? Make Nonna Amalia’s salame dolce or chocolate salami recipe! It’s super easy to make, easily gluten-free adaptable and also spiked with a little brandy to keep the adults happy and the festive mood alive. Read on for this delicious chocolate salami recipe.
What is chocolate salami?
Chocolate salami is an Italian sweet chocolate log that sort of resembles an Italian salami. Known as salame dolce (literally translating as sweet salami) in Italian, it’s typically made with biscuits, butter, eggs, chocolate and sometimes a little liqueur like rum. It’s rolled up into the shape of a long Italian salami and refrigerated overnight before being rolled in icing sugar to complete the look of a real salami.
How to make chocolate salami
Nonna Amalia’s recipe actually didn’t include any liqueur which is a little unusual for her. Since cooking many of her recipes, I’ve noticed that she regularly used a bit of alcohol in all her cooking so I was surprised not to find it in this one at first. If you want to keep it child-friendly, you can omit the cognac or rum I’ve used and it will still taste delicious. I also modified the recipe and used all gluten-free ingredients and it works perfectly like this too!
Ingredients:
- 300g sweet biscuits, crushed
- 100g chocolate
- 100g softened butter
- 2 eggs
- 200g sugar
- Icing sugar to dust
Chocolate Salami Recipe
- Begin by slicing your chocolate finely. Make a bain-marie by boiling some water on the stove and putting a bowl onto of your saucepan. Be sure that the bottom of the bowl doesn’t actually touch the water – you want the steam from the saucepan to rise up and hit the bowl only. Put your chocolate into the bowl and stir continuously until melted and glossy.
- Cream your butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat well.
- Pour your melted chocolate into the butter, sugar and egg. Mix well.
- Place your biscuits into a ziplock bag and close it. Use a rolling pin to roll up and down over the bag and crush the biscuits into semi-fine pieces. We don’t want them like breadcrumbs here, so don’t crush too much.
- Pour your biscuits into the chocolate and mix well.
- Prepare a tray with a piece of baking paper on top. Pour the salami mixture onto the baking paper and shape into a log.
- Take one edge of baking paper and fold over the top tightly. Roll your log again until it’s all rolled up in baking paper. Secure each end of your leg by twirling the baking paper like a candy.
- Place in the fridge or freezer overnight to set.
- The next morning take your log out and roll it well in some icing sugar. Wait 10 minutes before slicing for a perfect piece of chocolate salami.
Voila! That’s Amalia’s way for making delicious salame dolce. If you’d like to try more of her dolci, why not make her apple cake or apricot crostata. If you’re in the mood for something savoury though, you can’t go past her pesto and the leek risotto. Her son Massimo, (Andrea’s dad), is also an excellent cook and has taught me to make many a good dish. Try his pasta alla gricia for a taste of Roma now.