Hot Chocolate Fondants

I finally got back into the kitchen this weekend and had my first bash at one of the puddings from Gordon Ramsay’s Great British Pub Food. Chocolate fondants are something that I have made before. They are relatively simple to make and, if they come out right, taste sublime – warm, gooey, chocolaty goodness. The ingredients are fairly basic and something most people should have to hand. In fact, I think it’s worth keeping a bar of really good dark chocolate in the cupboard for whenever your choco-cravings call, this dish will certainly hit the spot. Or guys, if you ever need an excuse to get a date back to yours, what could be better than an offer of home-made chocolate fondants!? (OK, maybe a Ferrari on the drive might work too, but hey…)

The ingredients for the pudding are just plain, dark chocolate (I used a bar with 70% cocoa content), eggs, butter, sugar and flour.

First of all, I put the oven onto a medium heat to warm up and used paper towel to line a couple of ramekin dishes with butter to stop the fondants from sticking to the side.

Next, I put half the bar of chocolate and a decent sized knob of butter into a small bowl and set it over a pan of gently simmering water.

I stirred the mixture constantly and everything soon melted together. Once the chocolate sauce had achieved a nice, smooth consistency I set the bowl to one side to cool.

Meanwhile, to another bowl, I added a whole egg plus an egg yolk and some sugar.

Using an electric whisk, I beat the mixture for about four minutes until it had gone a paler colour and the volume had roughly tripled in size.

Carefully, I folded in the still warm chocolate sauce and a little flour. You want to try and keep as much of the air still in the mixture as possible, so go easy.

The mixture was then divided between two ramekins, set on a baking tray and popped into the oven to bake. How simple was that!?

The fondants should be baked just long enough for the outsides to set, but the insides to be still soft and runny. Mine took about eight minutes before they were ready. I took them out of the oven and, using a thin, flexible knife, eased them out of the ramekins and onto the plate for serving.

You can see them in all their gooey glory below. I served mine with some home-made schezuan pepper ice cream that I had left over in the freezer from a few weeks ago.

I usually end these cook through posts with a short “So, how did it taste” type blurb, but this time, I think a picture says a thousand words!!!

Simply divine. Give it a go yourself.