Chocolate Fondants

Chocolate fondants are quite an impressive dessert if you can get the consistency just right, so that it sits beautifully when plated, and oozes chocolate sauce as your spoon first breaks through the soft cake crust.  This is from a Gordon Ramsay recipe, and it came out perfectly on my first try.

Ingredients:
- 50g melted butter, for brushing
- Cocoa powder, for dusting
- 200g dark chocolate, best quality you can get, chopped into small pieces
- 200g butter, chopped into small pieces
- 200g golden caster sugar
- 4 eggs
- 4 egg yolks
- 200g plain flour

Preparing my chocolate fondants

Method:
1.  Using upward strokes, heavily brush the melted butter all over the inside of nine 150 ml pudding moulds. Place them into the fridge to chill.  Once chilled, brush more melted butter over the chilled butter, then add a spoonful of cocoa powder into the mould. Tip the mould so the powder completely coats the butter. Tap any excess cocoa out, and then repeat with all of the moulds.

2.  Place a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, and then slowly melt the chocolate and butter together. Remove the bowl from heat and stir until smooth. Leave to cool for about ten minutes.

3.  In another bowl whisk the eggs and yolks together with the sugar until thick and pale and the whisk leaves a trail. Sift the flour into the eggs, and then beat together.

4.  Pour the melted chocolate into the egg mixture in thirds, beating well between each addition until all the chocolate is added and the mixture is completely combined to a loose cake batter.

5.  Evenly divide the fondant between the moulds. (These can be frozen for up to a month and cooked from frozen.) If not freezing, chill for a minimum of 20 minutes or up to 24 hours.

6.  Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

7.  Place the fondants on a baking tray then cook for 10-12 minutes until the tops have formed a crust and they are starting to come away from the sides of their moulds. Remove from the oven, and then let them sit for 1 minute before turning out.

8.  Loosen the fondants by moving the tops very gently so they come away from the sides, easing them out of the moulds. Tip each one slightly onto your hand so you know that it has come away, then tip back into the mould, put a plate on top and turn it over.

9.  Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Don't forget to make meringues with the egg whites left from the fondant prep.

Chocolate Fondant served with Vanilla Ice Cream