Chocolate fondant is my death row dessert. It is simply unbeatable and if I see it on a menu I have to fight every instinct within my body not to order it without at least looking at the other options. I think I had my first chocolate fondant cake when I was really young, in microwave format bought from a supermarket. It was the most luxurious, decadent thing I had ever had and it immediately became my favourite dessert. I asked my Granny to help me make it and we made a reasonable attempt, but it wasn’t nearly as good. I recently found my childhood recipe scrapbook whilst looking for toys for my niece and inside it saw the chocolate fondant recipe, dutifully scribed by 8-year old me. Two decades on, with a chef diploma under my belt I thought it was time to have another go at this classic. I used the BBC Good Food recipe written by Gordon Ramsay (both major institutions in my books!) and was not disappointed. 

Not content to simply follow the rules however, I have added a twist. I have added some espresso powder to the batter for a deep bitter-sweet complexity that I think works extremely well. If you don’t love coffee halve the quantity of espresso powder and you won’t be able to taste it, but it will still give a depth in the background and bring the cocoa flavour to the fore. Equally, you could grate orange zest into the batter instead of coffee just to break up the chocolate monolith.

I have served my chocolate and espresso fondant with vanilla ice cream (the classic pairing!) but have again sought to elevate it somewhat with the addition of a dusting of espresso powder on top. As the vanilla ice cream begins to melt by virtue of its proximity to the molten pudding the coffee powder dissolves and forms a beautifully swirling affogato-esque cream. I am rather pleased with this discovery as I love affogato (vanilla ice cream with an espresso shot poured on top) but in this case the additional liquid was liable to turn the whole thing a bit swampy. Swamp neatly averted with the espresso powder however! ‘Salute’ to that!

I replicate the BBC Good Food recipe quantities for you here with my addition of espresso powder, but I must admit at this point that I did not follow their method. The first time I made this recipe, it had been a rather long day and I was intent on finding the least labour intensive route to chocolate relief as possible. I am pleased to say the results were perfect with a gorgeously gooey centre and spongy outer shell and minimum energy expended. I detail my shortcut to sweet salvation for you below.

A rather marvellous feature of this recipe is that most of the ingredients weigh 200g, which means you can actually commit this formula to memory. So what? Oh please get there faster! Such a memorable recipe means you could make this melt in the middle chocolate pudding anywhere at any time, even if you were stranded on a desert island with no internet connection. Isn’t that a comforting thought!…(although you would need to source high quality chocolate, some fresh eggs, golden caster sugar, flour…ok never mind.).

I have gone a step further with my interpretation of this classic pud, and covered it in a silky triple chocolate blanket. A step too far some of you might say, but I stand by my decision to be extra, it is holiday season after all! Speaking of holiday season, this is a great dessert to make for Christmas day, or New Years eve as firstly ,it makes 9 (double the quantities to make 18!) so feeds a crowd, but can also be made ahead. Simply make the batter and it can sit in the moulds in the fridge for up to 24 hours. Alternatively ,pop the filled moulds in the freezer for up to 3 months and cook from frozen. If you want to decorate the pudding with chocolate like me, head to my instagram @gggsarah to see my video on how to do it.

A note on moulds and lining them. I use 9 dariole moulds for this recipe, but you can also use ramekins or even a muffin tray in a pinch. To line the moulds, you can smear the inside with butter and dust with cocoa powder or just with butter and skip the cocoa. Both versions will easily release the pudding intact but the cocoa lined one definitely looks more deep and inviting and has a richer chocolate flavour too, so I recommend doing the cocoa dusting if you have time. There is however no obligation to de-mould your puddings at all if you don’t want to, and you can serve them in their ramekins if you want. In this case no lining of the ramekins is required.

So without further a-goo here is the recipe for my version of melt-in-the-middle chocolate fondant with espresso.