Chocolate fondants
Serves 8
– 250g dark chocolate
– 250g butter
– 200g castor sugar
– 5 eggs
– 150g plain flour
– 50g cornflour
– 30g cocoa
– 7.5g baking powder
Fondant caramel
– 180g sugar
– 140g cocoa
– 100g dark chocolate
To serve
– icing sugar
– 2 punnets raspberries
– pure cream
Make the fondant caramel first.
Place the sugar and 50 millilitres of water in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to the boil, making sure the sugar has dissolved, and then boil until it turns a light caramel colour.
Remove from the heat and carefully “break” the toffee by pouring in another 100 millilitres of water. Whisk in the cocoa, followed by the chocolate.
Allow this to set (I do this in the freezer). When the mixture is solid enough, roll eight one-centimetre balls. There will be more of this caramel than you need, but making a smaller amount can be fraught with danger and failure. You can keep the leftovers in an airtight container in the freezer to use later for another batch of fondants.
Preheat your oven to 180ºC.
Place the chocolate, butter and sugar in a large bowl over a double boiler and melt to combine. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs until they have doubled in size. I find it best to use a stand mixer for this.
Sift the remaining dry ingredients together.
When the chocolate mixture is melted, fold in the whisked eggs, and then fold in the dry ingredients.
Grease eight 150-millilitre dariole moulds, then three-quarter fill them, pushing the cake mixture to the sides to make a space for the toffee ball. Place the toffee ball approximately in the middle of the mould and cover it with the fondant mix that was pushed aside. Cook in the middle of the oven for 12 minutes or until the top feels firm.
Unmould carefully and dust with icing sugar. Serve with fresh raspberries and pure cream.