One giant After Eight mint

I got this recipe from last month's Delicious magazine, although I worked out immediately that it didn't work for me - far too little chocolate for the size of tin it recommends (and the filling).

After dinner mint chocolate: make it, smash it, eat it

Anyway this is what I did.

I had a long tin of about 8cm by 30cm, cos I wanted that sort of shape. I lined it in baking parchment (tip: scrunch up the paper first, then flatten it out so it lays flat more easily).

I melted some dark chocolate. I used about 150g for the bottom and 150g for the top (I'll put the whole recipe, as I used it, below) I used 70% but actually you could easily go higher - and definitely no lower. It's important to get the chocolate spread thinly. Thick sounds good but in reality this means you end up with chocolate that's hard to crack and you want it thin. Don't sweat it though because unless you're an idiot you still end up with a great end product.

Pour/spread the chocolate for the bottom (so, 150g) on the bottom of the tin - refrigerate. Chocolate takes almost no time at all to set. Mine took what seemed like 10 mins. It should be hard and crisp.

Make the fondant bit. I used one egg white and 220g icing sugar.

This is a suitable juncture to point out that this product contains raw egg whites so you know, don't eat if you're old/young/pregnant/prone to hysteria.

Mix the egg white and icing sugar together (sieve the icing sugar in) until you have a consistency that you like. Add a teaspoon of peppermint essence. Note that refrigerating it doesn't really thicken it up much so aim for what you want the finished filling to be like, not what you hope it will turn into. To this end you may wish to add the egg white bit by bit.

When ready, spread over the base layer of chocolate and refrigerate for an hour or two.

Now melt more chocolate and spread it gently over the top - don't drag it or you'll end up with a mess.

Refrigerate and when ready to eat bring it out and smash it up with a hammer and let people help themselves. The circles on mine (if you look closely) are from the meat tenderizer I used. I'm sure finer folk have a toffee hammer or some such.

Abandon all idea of cutting this into chic squares or slices - but only cos I tried and failed.

Scoff after your meal with a strong espresso.

In summary you need:

about 300g very dark chocolate
220g icing sugar
1 egg white
one teaspoon of peppermint extract (I used the Star Kay White one from Waitrose)

A greedy disposition.