We’re celebrating World Chocolate Day 2020 with a delicious, melty chocolate fondant! Sometimes called Lava Cakes or Molten Chocolate Cakes, these soft-centred desserts are rich with an intense chocolate flavour.
They’re a little bit fluffy, almost like a souffle, with a melting centre. In our blog post all about chocolate, I spoke about the differences between dark chocolate, semi-sweet and bittersweet chocolate. In this recipe it would be ideal to use either dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate, as these contain a bit more sugar and help to make the fondant sweet and not too bitter.
‘Fondant’ in French translates as ‘melting,’ describing the middle of these cakes. We cook them at a high heat but for a short time. This is to create a cooked outer structure while keeping the centre soft. It’s important to make sure the external cake is cooked enough, otherwise the whole cake will collapse when you try to remove it from the tin. But cook the fondants too much and the whole thing will be cooked through and there won’t be a molten centre! The temperamental nature of these cakes helps to explain why they’re rarely made on cooking shows, such as Masterchef.
History of Chocolate Fondants
There are many stories as to how the Chocolate Fondant came to be. French chef, Michel Bras, claims he created the fondant by adding frozen ganache to individual cakes. Once cooked, the ganache would have thawed and turned into a liquid centre. Alternatively, there’s a story about a Texan housewife in the 60s who created the first chocolate fondant, although she called it ‘Tunnel of Fudge Cake’! Years later, a chef in New York under-baked some chocolate cakes and realised how good they tasted with a molten centre! Any way you look at it, we can all be grateful that somebody created these delicious treats!
The Vegan Recipe
I’ve created this vegan recipe by swapping eggs for aquafaba and butter for margarine. By using dark chocolate we’re avoiding any dairy issues and creating that intense chocolate flavour. Milk chocolate is too light for this sort of dessert so stick to 50% + dark chocolate where possible. I’ve also added a drop of coffee to the mixture, this is just to enhance the chocolatey flavour but you can skip this step if you want.
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Overall, this recipe takes just minutes to beat together, minutes in the oven and seconds to eat! Enjoy!
Vegan Chocolate Fondant
Equipment
- Large Bowl
- Beaters
- Individual Pudding Moulds
- Parchment Paper
Ingredients
- 25 g Margarine or Vegan Butter
- 60 g Caster Sugar
- 6 tbsp Aquafaba
- 1 drop Vanilla Extract
- 1 tbsp Strong Brewed Coffee
- 40 g Plain Flour
- 160 g Melted Dark Chocolate
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 190°C/375°F
- Grease 2-3 pudding moulds and line with a thin strip of parchment paper. I also like to dust the inside of the moulds with cocoa powder
- Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30s bursts until just melted. Set aside
- In a large bowl, melt together the margarine and sugar until combined. This can take about 30s
- Add the aquafaba and beat together. This won’t mix in properly at this stage
- Pour in the vanilla and coffee and beat again briefly
- Sift over the flour and beat for 45s, at which point the mixture should combine and become smooth
- Add the melted chocolate and beat until just combined
- The mixture starts to set quite quickly, so I recommend immediately filling your pudding moulds up to ¾ full. The cakes won’t rise too much
- Place in the oven for 14-16 minutes. The outside should look fairly set with a slight wobble in the centre. Too much wobble and the whole thing will collapse. Too little wobble and they might be over-baked, so keep a close eye on them. You might need to remove them from the oven a bit earlier or cook them a bit longer
- Remove the puddings from the oven and leave to cool for 1 minute before turning out and serving
- Serve immediately and enjoy breaking the fondant open and seeing the molten centre flow out! I recommend adding a scoop of vegan vanilla ice cream on top to offset the warm fondant!