Chocolate fondant cake

Chocolate fondant cake

I figured it was time I made a dessert from the Basic Cook Book since I haven't done one in a while. I had a block of chocolate in the cupboard (well, most of a block, I was desperate for chocolate the other day!), so I thought I would make the chocolate fondant cake.

It is a slightly more complicated recipe - but not much is complicated with the TM5 - it tells you what to do, and it is pretty hard to go wrong. The first step involves whisking egg whites. With whipping eggwhites, as with any method, it is really important to make sure the bowl, blades and butterfly are all perfectly clean, dry and oil free. Anything contaminating the egg whites can stop the peaks from forming. If you have recently cooked something oily in there, it might be a good idea to give the bowl a vinegar wash, including the butterfly. Attach the butterfly to the blades, add 250ml of vinegar, 750ml of water and a couple of teaspoons of bi-carb. It will fizz a bit, but that's fine. Turn the dials to 10mins/speed 3/100 degrees. I usually go a bit slower first to make sure the butterfly is correctly attached. Just remember not to go over speed 4 or you will ruin the butterfly. Once the time is up, pour out the liquid and give the bowl and butterfly a good wash. Dry all the pieces really well. If you can, do this earlier in the day and leave the butterfly to air dry so you know it is really dry.

Whipped egg whites

Once the egg whites are whipped, they get put aside, and the batter is made. The batter is heated in the bowl, and then the chocolate gets added to the hot batter so it melts a bit, before getting mixed in. I ended up only having 225g of chocolate, but it was more than enough, its quite a rich cake. The egg whites go back in and the whole lot is then mixed together gently, so not too much air is knocked out.

Pre-cooked batter

I made this for Christmas last year, but cooked it a bit longer so it wasn't quite as runny in the centre last time I made it. This time I left it in the oven for an extra two minutes, because I got distracted when the timer went off. I think this worked quite well. It was just set on the outside and gooey in the middle. Its a very quick cake to cook, and the best part is you don't need to wait until its cooled to eat it! Yum!

Happy thermomixing!