Chocolate Fondant
Easy chocolate fondant recipe
Ingredients
- Prepare dishes
- melted butter - 1 tablespoon
- fine white sugar (caster) - sprinkling
- Fondants
- dark chocolate 70% Cocoa - 125g
- butter - 85g
- icing sugar (puder Zucker) - 60g
- eggs at room temperature - 3 medium
- Plain flour (405 Weizen Mehl) - 45g
Instructions
- Prepare the ramekin dishes by brushing them with melted butter and sprinkling fine white sugar around to coat the edge. This makes it easier to turn the fondant out.
- You need to melt the chocolate in a bain marie (water bath). To do this use a heatproof bowl that fits over one of your saucepans. Break the chocolate into pieces and add the butter to bowl. Fill the saucepan with a little water. Place the bowl over the top of it ensuring that the water doesn't reach the bottom of the bowl. Put on to the heat, bringing the water to the boil and then simmer the water. Stir the butter and chocolate occasionally until it is melted and then remove from the heat.
- In a separate bowl mix together the eggs and sugar and they are fully combined. Then stir in the melted chocolate and butter.
- Sieve the flour into the bowl. Gently fold the flour into the chocolate mixture, I used a spatula to do this and used a figure of eight stirring technique. Stop when you can't see anymore flour. Try to do this as gently as possible as you don't want to over mix the fondants as this can make them tough.
- Divide the mixture equally between the dishes. You can weigh them to ensure you get equal amounts in each one. Leave at room temperature until you are ready to cook them. If this a longer time cover them with cling film.
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
- Cook the fondants for approximately 8 minutes, they make take a little longer or shorter depending on your oven. See the picture below. Don't let them fully cook.
- When cooked turn out straight away on a plate to stop them over cooking in the residual heat from the dish. Serve with cream or ice cream.
This is a chocolate fondant recipe that I learnt how to do a team building cooking event at the Frank Petzchen Cooking School in Dusseldorf. We all had a great time at the event, I was on the main course but managed to sneak a peek at how to do the chocolate fondant. I have changed the instructions slightly to include some of the tips I have picked up over the years. The biggest change is that this recipe is in English.
I am a big fan of the television programme Masterchef and chocolate fondant is the recipe that most of the contestants really fail on. Their attempts are either too soft and collapse or are over cooked and end up like cake. I tried this method at home and was able to replicate the great results from the cooking school.
The good thing about this method is that it doesn’t use any special cooking container, but just some simple ramekin dishes. You don’t need to chill the mixture either. To make it easier to turn the chocolate fondants out brush melted butter around the ramekins and then sprinkle a little fine white sugar around the dish.
The key thing is to cook the fondant for the right length of time. Cook the fondants when you are ready to eat them. If you leave them in the dishes they are likely to continue to cook. Take the chocolate fondants out of the over before the top is fully set. If you look in the picture below you can see an area in the fondant that is still a bit sunken this is what you are aiming for.
Turn them out on to a plate to serve. If they have stuck you may need to loosen the edge with a knife, I didn’t have to do this. They are great served with cream or ice cream. The original recipe made them with 70% dark chocolate. This gives a very rich chocolate taste. If you want something slightly sweeter you could try them with 60% chocolate instead.
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