Probably, there are bakers on our website who remember the Shokoladnitsa cafe, opened in 1964 in Moscow near the Oktyabrskaya metro station. We students of the 80s had a tradition to celebrate the end of the session in this cafe by ordering wonderful branded pancakes with chocolate **. I no longer remember the interior of this famous cafe not only in Moscow, but I remember that on the walls there were reproductions of the painting "The Beautiful Chocolate Girl" by J.E. Lyotard, depicting a maid carrying hot chocolate on a tray. I also remember the taste of these magical pancakes.
I have long wanted to cook them myself. Searching for a recipe on the Internet did not cause delight. What they do not write on the net under the guise of a recipe for filling for these pancakes: there are fillings without chocolate, there is a kind of "Potato" cake wrapped in a pancake, and even nuts with condensed milk are found. The same Internet came to the rescue. I looked at the website of the Moscow chain of coffee shops "Shokoladnitsa". Now these pancakes are called "Legendary". And on the page with the menu, I saw the entire composition of the filling.
And this is a photo of a portion of the "Legendary" pancakes from the same site:
In addition, on the Big City website, I found the article “The First Pancakes” by the famous culinary traveler Alexei Zimin, which reveals almost the whole process of their preparation:
Their recipe is banal, like any revolutionary idea. It is universal, like a law of physics, and easily reproducible, like any chemical experiment from a seventh grade textbook. This alliance is so precise that it practically excludes the participation of the cook, that is, the human factor, which only spoils everything. Pancakes from Shokoladnitsa don't even need any special products. The most common flour. Regular chocolate, common raisins, and lapidary hazelnuts. And the result will always be brilliant. A viscous, enveloping taste of melted chocolate mass, sweet sparks of raisins, a snide bitterness of hazelnuts and a cozy freshness of a pancake.
The pancake is quite thick compared to the traditional pancake pancake. It is wrapped with a filling of chocolate chips, raisins and grated hazelnuts. All this can be frozen, stored indefinitely, then reheated in the oven or microwave to melt the chocolate. Pour a snake of melted chocolate on top, and please - an excellent dessert with a surprisingly accurate, textbook alliance of flavors: chocolate, raisins, hazelnuts and wheat flour - no more natural partners can be found.
In general, the puzzle in my head was formed. And I got down to business.
Pancakes are made in three stages. There are many descriptions, but things are moving quickly.
Cooking hazelnut, raisin and chocolate filling (10 minutes).
Wash the raisins, pour boiling water over it for 5 minutes. You can pre-soak the raisins in cognac or rum.
Fry the hazelnuts until lightly browning in the microwave for 1 - 2 minutes (you can in a pan with constant stirring). Remove the husks from the nuts and grind them into flour in a blender (in a food processor). The first time I ground the nuts into crumbs - I wanted to feel the nut in the filling (this option is shown in the photo). The second time I ground the nuts into flour.I liked this option more.
Grind the chocolate into crumbs using a blender (grater, knife).
Grind the raisins in a blender.
In a bowl, combine chopped nuts, chocolate and raisins. If the mass turns out to be dry, then you can add some alcohol to it (3 - 4 tbsp. L.).
If children eat pancakes, add milk / cream. I added 4 tbsp. l. cognac.
Making pancakes (2 hours)
Remembering that Zimin advises to take a "rather thick pancake compared to the traditional pancake pancake" with the taste of "cozy freshness", I decided to bake yeast pancakes according to the recipe
"Pancakes from Luda" posted by me earlier. The choice fell on these pancakes because they have a suitable thickness, are ideal for wrapping the filling in them and do not interrupt its taste with excessive sweetness, which will be enough in the filling and sauce anyway. Those who wish can bake pancakes according to the recipe they are used to. It is only important that the pancakes are well wrapped and not thin. I took half of all the ingredients indicated in the recipe
"Pancakes from Luda" and I got 20 pancakes with a diameter of 16 cm.
I do not describe the process of preparing the dough and baking in this recipe, so as not to clutter up the recipe with duplicate information.
Next, spread 2 - 3 tsp on the edge of the pancake. fillings and wrap tightly in a tube.
If we do not plan to serve pancakes immediately after they are formed, then we can cover them with cling film and remove before serving in the refrigerator. Pancakes can be frozen. But 1 hour before serving, they need to be removed from the freezer so that they thaw.
Preparing the pancake sauce (10 minutes).
Zimin writes that the pancakes should be "poured on top with a snake made of molten chocolate." At Shokoladnitsa in the 80s, not just melted chocolate, but chocolate sauce was served with pancakes in gravy boats. Therefore, for the recipe for the chocolate sauce, I chose the one that I have used before. Pour boiling water over sugar and stir until completely dissolved.
Put chocolate and butter, broken into pieces, into a large cup. We put the cup in a water bath and melt the chocolate and butter.
Stir the mass constantly.
Pour hot sugar syrup into the chocolate and butter and stir the sauce until smooth. The sauce is ready!
If the sauce has cooled, it can be reheated in a water bath or in the microwave for 15 to 30 seconds.
Pancake serving (5 minutes)
Pancakes are served warm with hot sauce. Place the pancakes on a microwave-safe plate and close it with a microwave-safe lid or suitable dish. We heat them up for 1 minute. You can reheat the pancakes in an oven preheated to 120 - 130 * C for a few minutes. During this time, the pancakes will become warm, and the chocolate in the filling will melt.
Pour hot chocolate sauce over the pancakes.
For those with a sweet tooth, you can serve additional sauce. But even so it turns out sweet.
The pancakes tasted amazing! I managed to reproduce the taste of those same pancakes from the 80s! It seems to me that the other should not have happened. After all, as A. Zimin noted in his article: “In pancakes from“ Shokoladnitsa ”you don't just need a flair, you don't even need any special products ... You need to take flour, nuts, raisins and chocolate. Any. And the result will always be brilliant. " Here is such a brilliant result I got!
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Bon appetit and happy memories!