Romantic Dinner Dessert for Two You Can Make a Day Ahead

The best choices are desserts that set or mellow in the fridge, so they taste even better the next day than right after making them. Here are five tried-and-tested ones:

1. Chocolate mousse: ready in 20 minutes, keeps in the fridge for 24 hours.

2. Panna cotta: sets in 4–6 hours, best within 48 hours.

3. Mini tiramisu in glasses: overnight the ladyfingers soak up the coffee and the flavours come together.

4. Chocolate fondant (lava cake): fill the ramekins ahead of time and bake for 10–12 minutes while you're finishing the main course.

5. Valentine's dough hearts: bake them 2–3 days ahead if you like; they stay crisp in a tin.

All five have one thing in common: on the day of the dinner, you only need to finish them off. If you'd rather make one small cake, check out the bento cake, a small cake for two.

Chocolate mousse is the surest choice: just a few ingredients, no baking, and after a night in the fridge it's lovely and thick. Spoon it into two glasses of 120–150 ml (about 4–5 fl oz), cover with cling film so it doesn't pick up fridge smells, and leave it to set for at least 4 hours.

Classic mousse is made with raw eggs. If that's a concern, read up on when raw eggs in creams carry a risk of salmonella. A lighter option is white chocolate mousse, which makes a red rose really stand out.

Panna cotta is cream set with gelatine and keeps in the fridge for 2 days, so you can make it up to two days ahead. When scaling the recipe down, don't change the ratio of gelatine to cream. Reduce everything by the same proportion, otherwise it will turn out rubbery or won't hold its shape.

The simple panna cotta works beautifully. If you want layers, try the strawberry panna cotta with chocolate. The white surface is the perfect canvas for rosebuds.

Tiramisu is one of the few desserts that positively benefits from a night in the fridge: the ladyfingers soften and the cream melds with the coffee. For two servings, two glasses or a small dish of about 12 × 12 cm (roughly 5 × 5 in) is enough.

Try the mini tiramisu with blackberries and Earl Grey, which already comes in small portions, or the raspberry tiramisu, which you can scale down to a third. Dust on the cocoa just before serving, otherwise it will get damp and darken.

Chocolate fondant is the only warm dessert in this selection, and it makes an impression because liquid chocolate flows out when you cut into it. Fill two greased ramekins with the batter in the afternoon and keep them in the fridge. Bake at 200 °C (390 °F) for 10–12 minutes. If they're straight from the fridge, count on the upper end. They're done when the edges are firm and the centre still wobbles slightly when you give it a shake.

We don't have our own chocolate fondant recipe on Yumsto yet. Until we add one, the simple chocolate cake baked in small ramekins will serve as a base. Be aware that it bakes through completely, with no liquid centre.

Dough hearts are the dessert you make first, even 3 days ahead, and they also work as a small gift. A crisp butter dough works best: cut out the classic linzer cookies with a heart-shaped cutter and sandwich them with raspberry jam. For a dinner for two, you could try linzer cookies filled with salted caramel.

Dip the hearts halfway into melted ruby chocolate and, before it sets, scatter them with sprinkles, such as the Love Sticks. The sprinkles stick to the chocolate; on a dry surface they would fall off.

The most reliable way to scale a recipe down to two servings is by weight, not by count. These are the three things where it usually goes wrong:

• Eggs: one egg without its shell weighs roughly 50 g. If you need half an egg, whisk it and weigh out 25 g.

• Tin: the area of a tin grows with the square of its diameter. An 18 cm tin has roughly half the area of a 26 cm one (18² : 26² ≈ 0.48), so it takes half the batter at the same depth.

• Baking time: small ramekins and glasses cook through sooner. With a smaller batch, start checking a third earlier than the original recipe says. Don't change the temperature.

Scale down gelatine, salt and baking powder by the same ratio as everything else and weigh them in grams, because guessing with a spoon is where small batches go most wrong.

Split your romantic dinner dessert into three stages. That leaves you with only five minutes' work on the night:

1. The day before (or 2–3 days for the hearts): bake the dough, make the mousse, panna cotta or tiramisu, fill the glasses and cover them.

2. Morning or afternoon: fill the ramekins with the chocolate fondant batter, melt the ruby chocolate for shavings or hearts and let it set.

3. 5 minutes before serving: take the dessert out of the fridge, dust with cocoa, add the rosebuds, a chocolate decoration with gold and the sprinkles.

Always add moist and delicate decorations last. A rose on cream goes soft within an hour, and sprinkles on cream bleed their colour.

Three things make the impression: colour contrast, one shiny detail and something crunchy. For a dessert for two, two of them are enough. Here's an honest comparison of decorations that suit a romantic dinner, whether or not we sell them:

• Dried rosebuds: rich colour, delicate scent, they keep for months. They look best on white panna cotta and dark mousse.

• Edible gold flakes: the strongest effect for the smallest amount. They have no taste at all; it's purely about looks. Place them on a chocolate decoration, not directly on the cream.

• Ruby chocolate: naturally pink with a fruity tang. Use it as shavings, broken shards or a coating for hearts.

• Sugar sprinkles: they crunch and add colour, and sit best on cookies and shortbread hearts.

• Fresh raspberries and strawberries: the most accessible and they always work. Add them just before serving, though, because they release juice.

• Freeze-dried raspberries (powder or pieces): intensely tart and a deep pink. You'll find them in health food shops; we don't have them on offer.

• Cocoa through a heart stencil: costs next to nothing and works brilliantly on tiramisu and mousse.

Put dried rosebuds on the dessert whole, 3–5 per serving, or pull off the petals and crumble them. Whole ones look more dramatic, while petals are more delicate and easier to eat. For a rich contrast, cherry red works best, such as Rosebuds – Cherry Red. You'll find other flowers for decorating, such as lavender or cornflower, in edible flowers.

Rosebuds absorb moisture, so place them only on a set surface and just before serving. Store leftover rosebuds so they don't lose their colour: somewhere dry, dark and in a sealed container.

Move an edible gold flake with tweezers or a dry brush, never your fingers: it will stick to your skin and tear. Lay it on a chocolate heart, a shaving or a shard of ruby chocolate, and then place that on the dessert.

One or two small pieces per serving is enough. More gold on a dessert looks gaudy rather than luxurious. We have Genuine 24-carat edible gold flakes. A cheaper alternative is shimmering edible dust, which gives a sheen but not a metallic flake.

Ruby chocolate is naturally pink, thanks to specially processed cocoa beans rather than any added coloring. The maker, Barry Callebaut, presents it as the fourth type of chocolate alongside dark, milk and white. It tastes fruity and slightly tart, a bit like raspberries. For what the cocoa percentage on the label tells you about quality, see our article on cocoa percentages on chocolate.

• Melt it gently, to 113 °F (45 °C) at most, in a double boiler or in the microwave in 15-second bursts. Overheated chocolate turns brown and thick.

• For shavings and shards, spread it on baking parchment about 2 mm thick, let it set, then break it up.

• For a glossy coating that holds, temper it: melt to 45 °C, cool to 26–27 °C, then work at 28.5–29 °C. Don't heat it above working temperature, or the temper is lost and the coating will be neither glossy nor firm.

For decorating two desserts and a few hearts, 50–80 g is plenty. You can use the rest of the chocolate elsewhere, and you'll find ideas in our article on what to bake with leftover chocolate. The chocolate drops we sell are Ruby RB2 Chocolate Drops 400 g.