Extremely easy to make with endless possibilities for variation, Molly Baz’ chocolate-cashew chia pudding is a rich, filling dessert that’s perfect for anyone looking for a quick healthy treat. The pudding base is a great snack on its own, naturally sweetened with Medjool dates and packed with flavour from cocoa powder and cinnamon. However, for an elevated dessert, Molly recommends layering the pudding with yoghurt and toppings of your choice. Get the recipe here.

Tatler Tip: though Molly first found incredible internet fame during her tenure at Bon Appétit, the avid salt-user and caesar salad enthusiast has enjoyed continued success in her independent ventures. Her recent bestseller, Cook This Book, is an ingenious cookbook that is as thoughtful as it is beautiful - sneak a peek and see for yourself.

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Well-known for producing approachable recipes that don’t skimp on flavour, the glamorous and playful Nigella Lawson has never been to culinary school, nor has she received any professional training of any sort. This recipe for a chocolate peanut butter fudge sundae serves “four very lucky people” and embodies her casual approach to delicious cooking, garnering rave reviews from fans who’ve tried it. 

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Now the showrunner behind the Babish Culinary Universe, Andrew Rea (known as ‘Babish’ online) started out filming step-by-step videos recreating food and beverages from film and television. Some of his most popular videos include the ratatouille from the eponymous animated film, Ross Geller’s Thanksgiving Moistmaker sandwich from Friends, and this recipe for Ned Flanders’ decadent hot cocoa from The Simpsons Movie. Using two types of chocolate, a variety of milks, and adorned with whipped cream, a marshmallow, a graham cracker, and more chocolate, this hot chocolate is sure to make you go “oh my god”.

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INTERMEDIATE

Ina Garten (aka The Barefoot Contessa) is a beloved figure from the Food Network realm. Of her many top-rated bakes, Beatty’s chocolate cake remains one of her most famous - though she shares that the recipe is not her own, but from the mother of her long-time friend Michael. “He actually served this cake to me once at dinner, and I just begged him for the recipe - I didn’t have to beg very hard”, she jokes on the show. 

Tatler Tip: while the addition of coffee may dissuade some from making this cake, it wonderfully intensifies and deepens the chocolate flavour in the cake base and frosting.

Read More: Tatler's Guide To The Best Cake

Dubbed the enfant terrible across the restaurant industry, Marco Pierre White is an established (and often feared) name in the culinary world who trained some of the United Kingdom’s top chefs - including Gordon Ramsay. But have no fear - his recipe for a classic chocolate tart is deceptively simple and easily manageable for any home baker (plus, if you do botch the recipe, he won’t be around to give you an earful).

Since winning The Great British Bake Off in 2015, Nadiya Hussain has gone on to guest, judge, and host multiple television series, including the Netflix series Nadiya’s Time To Eat and BBC production Nadiya Bakes. In the latter, she guides viewers through her recipe for a sharing chocolate fondant: a large-format iteration of a petit gâteau perfect for impressing a crowd of 4-5 that goes perfectly with some ice cream or crème fraîche.

The Manhattan-born bakery Milk Bar took the world by storm with their now-iconic goods such as the Cereal Milk Ice Cream, Milk Bar Pie (formerly called Crack Pie) and refreshingly naked birthday cakes. Luckily for us, the Milk Bar website and Christina Tosi’s personal website both feature an array of recipes from the institutional bakery, including this recipe for cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow cookies.

Tatler Tip: to learn more about wonder woman Christina Tosi and how she translated her insatiable sweet tooth to a successful empire, check out her episode on Chef’s Table: Pastry, streaming on Netflix.

Read More: 7 of the Best Filipino Chocolate Brands

As the author of the best-selling and James Beard award-winning cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, Samin Nosrat is a growing and unstoppable force in gastronomic circles. This recipe for this oil-based chocolate midnight cake is among the many great recipes in this wonderfully educational book. Gushing about the treat, Samin writes “I tasted a chocolate birthday cake so moist and rich that I nearly fainted from delight. For days, that slice of cake haunted me, so I begged my friend for the recipe.”

Tatler Tip: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - which is named after the four elements Samin Nosrat identifies as the foundation of great cooking - has since been translated to a four-part docuseries, which you can watch on Netflix.

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Dominique Ansel is best known as the talented mind behind Cronuts, chocolate chip cookie shots, and other Instagram sensations. However, in his 2020 cookbook, Everyone Can Bake, Ansel shares simpler recipes that are much more accessible to the average baker. One such recipe is his go-to brownies, paired with a smooth, slightly chewy caramel that you can drizzle (or slather) all over the chocolate base.

Read More: Cronuts, Brookies, and Mochi Brownies - 5 Unique Hybrid Pastries To Try

No cookie connoisseur was immune from Jacques Torres’ chocolate chip cookie craze. Published by the New York Times in 2008, the recipe grew insanely popular across the globe. To this day, the recipe boasts a five-star rating on NYT Cooking - a wildly impressive achievement considering it has nearly ten thousand reviews. Utilising cake flour and bread flour instead of the typical all-purpose, Jacques’ cookies achieve a unique chewiness you’ll long for bite after bite.

Tatler Tip: plan ahead and be patient - the recipe calls for resting the cookie dough for at least 24 hours, which is necessary to achieve a firmer dough with a much deeper flavour.

CHALLENGING

Heston Blumenthal is renowned as a pioneer of multi-sensory cuisine and mind-boggling food.  His innovative dish The Sound Of The Sea presents diners with fresh sashimi laid upon an edible imitation of sand and seafoam, accompanied by a real-life conch shell with an iPod that plays sounds replicating what you might hear by the ocean. Heston’s Meat Fruit is as delicious as it is deceptive, wrapping a chicken liver parfait in a mandarin jelly to masquerade as the citrus - an illusion that soon fades when you slice through its ‘peel’. This recipe for an exploding chocolate gateau aims to induce a similar effect by hiding popping candy in the centre of the chocolatey dessert, resulting in a wondrous surprise for unassuming guests.

Read More: These are the 22 Best Filipino Restaurants in the Tatler Dining Guide 2022

When Peter Gilmore unveiled his Eight-Texture Chocolate Cake at the Masterchef Australia elimination, jaws dropped to the floor and contestants grew hysterical at the thought of recreating it.  One home cook on the chopping block shared “I’ve seen that dessert in his cookbook and I remember looking at it laughing thinking there’s no way anyone could actually make that at home.”  The extremely complex chocolate-filled dessert consists of a cake base, mousse, praline discs, ganache, dacquoise, cream, top disc, and a warm sauce that’s poured onto the cake that forms a beautiful, tempting well in the centre. Try it out for yourself and see if you can master this recipe from the executive chef behind two of Sydney’s most famous restaurants - the multi-award-winning Quay, and Bennelong at the unmistakable Sydney Opera House.

Tatler Tip: if you’re up for an even greater challenge, Gilmore’s notorious Jackfruit Snow Egg is regarded as one of the most difficult tasks presented in Masterchef history.

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