Ingredients

• 200 g dark chocolate60 to 70 per cent; higher sets brittle and shatters rather than snaps
• 140 g pecan halvesraw, not pre-toasted, so you control the roast
• 1 tsp maple syrupoptional
• 1/2 tsp flaky sea saltflaky; fine salt dissolves in and just tastes salty

Method

1. 01

   Toast the pecans

   Heat the oven to 180C fan / 200C conventional. Spread the pecan halves in a single layer on a baking tray and toast for 7-9 minutes, giving the tray a shake halfway. They are ready when the kitchen smells strongly of pecan and the nuts have darkened by a shade. Look at the cut face, which should be light gold rather than pale cream. Pecans go from toasted to bitter in under a minute, so start checking at 7.

   140 g pecan halves

2. 02

   Season the nuts while warm

   Tip the hot pecans into a bowl. If using the maple, add the 1 tsp now and toss for 15 seconds. The residual heat drives off the water and leaves a thin lacquer rather than a sticky coat. Spread them back out on the tray and leave for 10 minutes until completely cool and no longer tacky. Warm nuts will seize melted chocolate, and damp nuts will make it grainy.

   Other nuts, other timersHazelnuts want ten to twelve minutes and a rub in a towel. Walnuts need six and turn bitter fast.

3. 03

   Break them up

   Break the cooled pecans by hand into halves and thirds. Resist chopping them on a board: a knife makes dust as well as pieces, and the dust dulls the chocolate. You want irregular shards so every cluster has a piece you can feel.

4. 04

   Melt the chocolate

   Melt the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. The bowl must not touch the water, and the water must not boil, or steam will find its way in and the chocolate will thicken into a paste. Stir with a dry spatula until smooth and no lumps remain, then lift the bowl off the heat and keep stirring for 30 seconds as it comes down slightly. Microwave works too: 20-second bursts at medium, stirring between each, stopping while a few pieces are still visible and letting the residual heat finish them.

   200 g dark chocolate

5. 05

   Fold and spoon

   Tip the broken pecans into the chocolate and fold with a spatula until every piece is coated. Working quickly, spoon 12 irregular mounds, roughly a heaped dessertspoon each, onto a parchment-lined tray, leaving a thumb's width between them. Don't flatten them. The craggy tops are the point.

6. 06

   Salt and set

   Scatter a few flakes of sea salt over each cluster within the first minute, while the surface is still wet enough to hold them. Leave at cool room temperature for 40-60 minutes until firm and dry to the touch. Don't set them in the fridge unless the kitchen is very warm: cold sets the cocoa butter unevenly and they will bloom grey within a day.

   Set them on the worktop, not in the fridgeUnder 45 C to melt, cool at room temperature, and the chocolate will not bloom grey.

   Layer between parchmentStacked directly, the salt sticks to the cluster above and comes off the one below.