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Recipes from Warren Laine-Naida's Kitchen

EZ Chocolate Pate

Twenty-five years and roughly 150 pates in - still one of the easiest, most forgiving things you can make with dark chocolate.

Active Time~20 Min
Chill Time3–4 Hrs
Yield1 kg / Serves 10
MethodNo Bake
Sliced dark chocolate pate on a serving plate
Pouring the chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients
Chocolate pate rolled into small balls for decorating a cake
Unmoulded and ready for slicing or further decoration
Close-up of the finished chocolate pate showing the studded cookie, nut and fruit filling
The finished chocolate pate cross-section

Chocolate pate can be eaten alone in slices, or scooped into small balls to decorate cakes. Warren Laine-Naida has been making these for more than 25 years - his notes on custom pates for customers stopped counting somewhere around 150. After that, it's anyone's guess.

Why It Works This is little more than a rich chocolate ganache poured over whatever dry, sturdy things you already have in the kitchen - cookies, nuts, dried fruit, even leftover cake. Once it sets, it slices clean like a terrine. The recipe below makes a one-kilogram pate, easily enough for a party of ten.

The Base Ratio

Four parts by weight, roughly: chocolate leads, cream and butter bind it, and the dry mix-ins carry the texture. Once you know the ratio, you can build a pate from almost anything.

Chocolate 400 g
Mix-ins 300 g
Cream 200 ml
Butter 100 g

Ingredients

Method

  1. Chop the chocolate. Hack the dark chocolate into very small bits so it melts quickly and evenly.
  2. Set up the dry mix. Place your cookies, cake, fruit, nuts - whatever is going into your pate - into a mixing bowl.
  3. Warm the cream. Bring the cream almost to a boil in a saucepan.
  4. Melt in the butter. Remove from the heat, add the room-temperature butter, and stir until it melts.
  5. Melt in the chocolate. Add the chopped chocolate and stir until fully melted and glossy.
  6. Combine. Pour the chocolate, cream and butter mixture over the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl. Gently mix together.
  7. Mold it. Scoop the pate mass into the form of your choice.
  8. Chill and unmold. Once cool, refrigerate until fully set, then unmold and slice with a hot knife.

Kick It Up a Notch

Wrap the finished pate in a layer of chocolate, or cocoa, or literally anything you like - as long as you're going to eat it. Let your creativity take off.

Prefer bite-size? Scoop the set pate into small balls instead of slicing, and use them to decorate a cake - the same trick Chef Warren uses for his edible art pieces.