Easy, No Bake Chocolate Salami – A Uniquely Italian Dessert

Chocolate salami or Salami di cioccolato, is a uniquely Italian dessert or sweetmeat. This dessert is very popular amongst the Italian families and it is usually eaten with coffee, after lunch. It is sometimes served as dessert in trattorias, especially in those rural trattorias you can find along the Po river at the border between Lombardy and Emilia Romagna regions of Italy.

You are more likely to find a chocolate salami being served around Christmas time. However, we think you should be making it all-year-round.

There are many variations of the theme, of course, and this is down to the local culinary customs, as always happens in Italy. It’s a rustic dessert that is very good to eat although difficult to describe. You could describe it as the Italian rum truffle but it is probably best that you simply try it!

Ingredients – 6 – 8

300 grams (11 oz) Simple-syle tea biscuits
150 grams (5 oz) Butter (unsalted)
100 grams (4 oz) Dark chocolate (I have used 85% cocoa)
100 grams (4 oz) Caster sugar
2 Eggs This is a dessert containing raw eggs, so be sure you buy fresh, top quality eggs.
30 ml (1 fl oz) Dark rum

Preparation

Cut the butter into pieces and let it warm to room temperature.
Break the chocolate bar into pieces and put them into a small bowl. Melt the chocolate using the bain Marie method.
While melting the chocolate, stir with a spoon to be sure that there are no lumps. When the chocolate is completely melted, set the bowl aside and let the chocolate cool a little.
Put the biscuits into a large bowl.
Break the biscuits using the back of a spoon; make them into crumbs.
When the butter is soft, work it with an electric whisk for few seconds and then start adding the ingredients as shown next (you can add all these ingredients without stopping
Add the sugar.
Add the eggs.
Whisk for few seconds.
Add the melted chocolate.
Whisk for few seconds.
Add the rum and whisk again for few seconds.
Pour the mixture into the large bowl containing the biscuit crumbs. If using citrus peel, add this now.
With a spoon, work the mixture until all the biscuit crumbs are completely coated with the chocolate mixture.
The result should be a chocolate dough.
Take the dough and make the shape of a salami. Put the chocolate salami onto a layer of cling film and then wrap it with the film.
When wrapping, press the chocolate salami to make it compact. Then seal the sides and put the chocolate salami in the fridge for a couple of hours.
After a couple of hours, you can slice your chocolate salami and serve it with coffee or tea.