Melt Chocolate Fondant Melt

Chocolate fondant – it’s a nice way to call a half-baked cake.

My dissertation is, at present, also ‘half-baked’. What my brain needs now is a huge meltdown, before I bring its gears back up again on Monday.

Ingredients:

• Melted butter: 1 tbsp
• Cocoa powder: 4 tsp
• Dark chocolate: 100g, chopped into small pieces
• Unsalted butter: 100g, sliced into small pieces
• Egg: 2
• Egg yolk: 2
• Castor sugar: 100g (less than 1/2 cup)
• Plain flour: 100g (about 3/4 cup)
• Vanilla essence: 1 tsp
• Icing sugar: 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 180 deg.
2. Rub 4 ramekins with melted butter.
3. Add 1 tsp of cocoa powder into each ramekin. Tip the ramekins to coat the bottom and sides with the powder.
4. Tap out the excess powder. Place ramekins into fridge to chill.
5. Melt chocolate and butter in a hot water bath. Remove from heat and leave to cool for 10min.
6. Meanwhile, whisk whole eggs, egg yolks and sugar together. If using a hand-whisker, do this for about 20min.
7. Add flour to egg mixture. Continue whisking for 5min.
8. Add vanilla essence. Stir in chocolate mixture in 3 batches, beating well with each batch.
9. When mixture is evenly combined, pour equal portions into chilled ramekins.
10. Place ramekins on baking tray. Bake for 10min till top forms a crust.
11. Remove from oven and leave to cool for 1min.
12. Use a butter knife to move the top of the crust away from sides of ramekins if you want to plate up the fondants.
13. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with vanilla ice-cream if desired.

Trick:

• For storage, freeze the unbaked chocolate mixture in the ramekins and bake from frozen for 15min.

Disclaimer:

• This recipe is adapted from the BBC GoodFood website.

Serving:
Makes 4 ramekins of fondant