The Adult Cookie Sandwich

While I have quite a few dessert volumes dedicated to chocolate, the one I consistently turn to time and again is Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme, written by Dorie Greenspan. No other book fills me with the same excitement, the same urgent need to go rustle something up in the kitchen. And despite the fact that I've stayed up nights pouring over its exquisite pages, I never fail to spot yet another recipe I simply must try or revisit or tinker with.

In looks, this pair of treats are elegant and decorous. But in terms of taste and texture, they very much remind me of cookie sandwiches - the crisp and chewy without affording the loveliest contrast to the creamy and lush within.

Triple Chocolate Meringue Puffs

The original recipe is a unique take on meringue glacée, with whisper-weight chocolate meringues anchoring a scoop of chocolate ice cream or bittersweet chocolate sorbet, crowned by an extravagant swirl of chocolate whipped cream. I've used the pastry chef's Deep Chocolate Cream recipe instead of ice cream as the filling (thus making it closer in character to a meringue chantilly rather than a meringue glacée) so the dessert can be assembled ahead of time - a useful trait in a dish if, like me, you get unnecessarily stressed by the prospect of last minute work. My favourite part was piping out the Botero-esque meringue rounds - plump, peaked poufs resembling chubby chocolate kisses. As Dorie Greenspan advises, deconstructing the dessert (a messily delicious affair, incidentally) requires both spoon and fork.

Chocolate and Hazelnut Dacquoise

Here, discs of hazelnut and almond dacquoise - a cross between meringue and cake in texture - sandwich an intense bittersweet chocolate cream ganache. To maximise the crunchy circumference-to-chewy centre ratio, not to mention succumb to my obsession with miniaturisation, I piped out the batter in small rounds intended for individual servings instead of the 9-inch circles called for.