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Chocolate Sauce

3-1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/2 cup castor sugar, divided

1 cup plus 2 teaspoons water

1.75 ounces 64% dark chocolate

To make the Chocolate Sauce: Combine the cocoa powder, salt, cornstarch, and 1/4 cup castor sugar in a medium bowl. In a saucepan, boil the water with the chocolate and remaining castor sugar. Pour boiled mixture into the cocoa powder mixture in the bowl. Mix well and return to the saucepan. Bring back to a boil and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes, continuously whisking. Pass through a fine mesh strainer and cool to room temperature.

Chocolate Spikes

1 ounce cocoa liquor (i.e., 99% pure cocoa in block form)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup glucose or corn syrup

To make the Chocolate Spikes: Chop the chocolate liquor. Cook the sugar and glucose or corn syrup to 165 degrees C or 329 degrees F. Add the chocolate to melt. Pour on top of parchment paper and roll out to a thickness that, although thin, will still be manageable to handle once cooled. Pre-cut into small squares; cool.

Separate the small squares and make into a powder in the food processor. Sift through a fine mesh sieve onto parchment paper and then melt in a 350-degree F oven. Using a small palette knife and powder-free latex gloves, pull the chocolate into desired long and fine pieces and cool, leaving one end strong enough to be inserted into the cake without breaking.

How to Plate: Cut the Bitter Chocolate Cake into 2 x 4-1/2-inch pieces, making sure the width is the same as the width of the banana pieces. Generously brush the Chocolate Sauce across the plate, placing the cake in the center. Place the Caramelized Banana square on top of the cake at one end. Quenelle the Chocolate Sorbet and place near the center of the cake. At the desired place in the cake, make a slightly thin indent with a knife tip to help the end of the chocolate spikes to be placed and not break. Very gently anchor the tall Chocolate Spikes into the center. Make a larger quenelle of Coconut Sorbet and place on the end of the cake opposite the banana. Serve immediately.

Todd English

“If I were to be reincarnated as a vegetable, I would like to be a fava bean, hiding inside that little stem, living inside a velvet room!”

Todd English began cooking at the age of fifteen and, in 1982, graduated from the Culinary Institute of America with honors. His culinary passion grew, working for Jacques Rachou at La Cote Basque in New York, and in Italy, he refined his interpretive rustic Mediterranean style. Returning to America at age twenty-five, he garnered acclaim as the chef at Michela’s in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in 1989, he opened Olives in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Today his restaurant brand stretches from New York and Connecticut to Aspen, Las Vegas, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. In 2006, Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, Orlando’s Blue Zoo at the Walt Disney World Resort’s Dolphin Hotel, and Riche and 528 at Harrah’s Hotel in New Orleans were added to the repertoire.

A noted chef and author of three acclaimed cookbooks, English has received three James Beard Foundation awards—Rising Star Chef (1991), Best Chef: Northeast (1994), and Who’s Who in Food and Beverage in America. His other accolades include being a Nation’s Restaurant News Top 50 Tastemaker, a Bon Appétit Restaurateur of the Year, and one of People magazine’s (2001) 50 Most Beautiful People. In 2005, he served as executive celebrity chef for MTV’s Video Music Awards; that same year, his collection of cookware and lifestyle products broke the housewares electronic retail record on HSN. His television credits include Cooking Under Fire, Cooking with Todd English, Iron Chef USA, Good Morning America, Great Chefs of the Northeast, and a thirteen-episode PBS international travel and cooking series—Food Trip with Todd English. His philanthropic endeavors include Big Brother, the Anthony Spinazzola Foundation, Share Our Strength, Boys and Girls