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Yesterday (no kidding), my son told me “for my birthday I want a chocolate fondant.”

I’ll admit it suits me better as it takes way less time than a fraisier (plus, strawberries in February? That’s a concept).

Over the past year, through various experiments, I managed to find and adapt a recipe I genuinely love (thanks in particular to Sandra Noé, who published this marvel from which I drew heavy inspiration [barely 90%]). I often find chocolate cakes either too dry (the so-called “moelleux” that are anything but, and which require a good liter of crème anglaise [do you call it english custard?] to wash down), or sickening (looking at you, lava cakes — though you can make them tiny to avoid being overwhelmed).

Anyway, I love this recipe. And good recipes are meant to be shared.

Principle

The secret of this recipe is adding a generous amount of salted butter caramel to bring out the flavor. I have a nice recipe for it, but it’s for another day or two years.

Note

We, French, are very pedantic about food, and also about science, I therefore rely on the metric system for evaluating doses, if you want to get your recipe with oz/tea spoons/cups, etc, I’m sorry but I can’t help as I suck with these units. That being said I guess some nice websites exist for this.

That being said, the conversion between Celsius and Fahrenheit is easy, as TF = 1.8 times TC + 32. I’ll put these in parentheses.

Ingredients (for 6 folks)

• 200 g of salted butter
• 200 g of 55% cocoa chocolate
• 5 eggs
• 180 g of vergeoise (a type of brown sugar — regular brown sugar or muscovado works too)
• 2 tablespoons of homemade salted butter caramel (I have a recipe, I’ll post it someday)
• 30 g of flour

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 210°C (410°F).

Heat some water in a saucepan for a bain-marie (for those sleeping in the back row: the water needs to boil, otherwise it’s just a cold bath). Place a mixing bowl on top with the chocolate broken into pieces and the butter, stir while waiting for it to melt.

Just so we’re on the same page, here’s a gorgeous timelapse of the melting process. Since hosting videos is expensive, this is a two-frame timelapse.

Add the glorious spoonfuls of caramel.

Meanwhile, using a stand mixer, a hand mixer, or sheer willpower and determination (I saw a video of a guy yelling at butter and it melts, so I believe), whisk the eggs and sugar into a sabayon (whisk until the mixture becomes pale and fluffy). Don’t stop whisking for too long before incorporating the rest as the sugar will cook the eggs.

Fold in the chocolate/butter/caramel mixture, then once it’s combined, add the flour.

Grab a baking pan, some parchment paper, cut it the right way to line the pan, then pour the batter in.

Bake for 4 minutes 30 seconds, then lower the temperature to 120°C (248°F) and leave it for another 25 minutes. Then turn off the oven, leave it in for 5 more minutes, and take it out.

After 1 hour of resting at room temperature, put it in the fridge. Only unmold it once it’s completely cold.

Now, normally I’d have a photo of the fondant here, but two vultures demolished it too early, so instead I have a pacman fondant.

Ready? Enjoy!

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