Juliet Sear's gooey chocolate fondants
With Valentine's Day just around the corner, Juliet Sear has just the dish to take you and your loved ones to chocolate heaven with her easy to make, prepare-ahead chocolate fondants.
Juliet’s chocolate fondants
Serves: 4
Ingredients
100g butter, plus an extra 20g for greasing the pudding moulds
7g cocoa, plus extra for dusting
100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
75g golden caster sugar
2 free range eggs
½ tsp vanilla extract
75g plain flour, sifted
4 x 7.5cm diameter pudding moulds
Method
1. Brush inside the basins generously with melted butter, place in the fridge to set.
2. Brush the moulds with more butter, then dust with cocoa powder, tipping the mould to completely coat up the sides and base. Shake off any excess into a spare bowl. Repeat with the other 3 then pop them into the fridge while you mix up the batter.
3. Put the chocolate and 100g butter in the microwave and heat for 30 second blasts, stirring in between until smooth and glossy, or melt over a bain marie. Set aside.
4. Whisk the sugar and the eggs for about 5 minutes with an electric whisk until they triple in volume and are very pale and fluffy and the whisk is leaving trails over the surface. Whisk in the vanilla.
5. Gently fold through the chocolate and butter, then fold through the sifted flour and cocoa, taking care not to knock the air out of the mixture.
6. Divide the mix between the moulds and leave to set in the fridge for at least an hour - alternatively you could make them the day before, or place in the freezer for up to one month.
7. Preheat the oven to 180C fan and place a baking tray in the oven. Carefully place the fondants onto the hot baking sheet and bake for 8-9 minutes (12-14 minutes from frozen), or until the mix is slightly shrinking away from the edge of the mould and the top is crusting over. Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 1 minute, then run a knife around the top edges to loosen and invert onto serving plates.
8. Serve with vanilla ice cream, clotted cream, whipped cream, mascarpone or crème fraîche.