I am going to use a ratio. 2:2:1:1:1:1.
This translates as
– 2 eggs
– 2 egg yolks
– 100g of butter
– 100g of good chocolate
– 100g of caster sugar
– 100g of flour
This is enough for roughly 4 fondants, so manipulate the amounts to get the number you require, just keep the ratio intact.
Preheat the oven to 200C (180 fan forced). Grease your ramekins or muffin tray with butter. Take some care to brush upwards along the sides of the cups, then place in the freezer.
Melt the butter and the chocolate together. Use a double boiler, hell use the microwave if you must, just take care the chocolate does not burn. Set aside to cool a little.
Whisk the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together till light and fluffy. The whisk will leave a trail behind it. Sift the flour into the egg mixture and mix well.
Now add your chocolate and butter mix a third at a time, gently folding in. Get the ramekins or whatever out of the freezer and brush with more butter if you are keen.
You are now ready to pour your fondant mixture in. (Chef Ramsay suggests that you pour an extra fondant so that you have one to sacrifice to test that the timing is right taking them out of the oven, but I’d only do that if you were obsessed with presentation. In our family the chef would just get the messy dessert)
Put your ramekins or muffin tins into the fridge for at least 1/2 an hour. You could make the fondant mixture the night before and leave it in the fridge overnight, or you could even freeze it for up to 3 months.
When ready, put the fondants into the oven for 10-15 minutes. The timing is really the only slightly tricky part of this process, too long and you’ll get mud cake, too little and you’ll get sauce. What you want is a chocolate cakey crust around rich gooey chocolate sauce. Crust has to be thick enough to keep the sauce in.
Carefully loosen the fondants and turn out onto plates. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Yum!