Fondant au Chocolat

I made these cakes in early December to take to our friends, Cynthia and Mike's, annual Chranukkah party. The theme is always chocolate and we always try to find a new recipe to bring each year. I chose this, as I had become somewhat obsessed with 'les fondants au chocolat' while in France this past fall, after having an absolutely amazing one from Pizza Hut, of all places. My dad has sent me a few other recipes for these which I had intended on trying, though that will probably not be for awhile now that Jerome has diabetes. But these ones are pretty delicious, both cold and warm. They will disappear in an instant. They are extremely rich though, so be warned...

200g of dark chocolate (minimum 60%)
8 squares of the same chocolate
220g butter
160g sugar
120g flour
4 eggs



1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Farenheit.

2. Boil water in a pot. Place a smaller pot in the pot of water and melt the chocolate in the butter as quickly as possible. Let cool.

3. Beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture becomes a golden yellow. Add the flour and mix with a spatula. Gently fold in the chocolate mixture.

4. Fill well buttered muffin tins (I used the silicone tins and didn't need to butter them) half full. Place one square of chocolate into the middle of each muffin tin and then fill to near the top with the batter.

5. Bake for approximately 15 minutes and then let sit for 15 minutes before taking them out of the tins.

When properly baked, the cakes should be cooked on the edges, but the centre should be runny. You will have to play with them with your oven to see how long you need to cook them. The difference between them being properly cooked, a bit too raw, or overcooked can be a question of only half a minute. The magic number in my oven was 11 1/2-12 minutes. When I first made these, you can cook just one to test it, before putting the rest of the batch in, just so that you don't risk overcooking the whole batch (as the runny centres are key to these).



These cakes can be eaten either cold or warm. When warm, the chocolate centre will be melted. To reheat them, place one in the microwave for 10-15 seconds.

Variations: replace the chocolate square in the middle of the cakes with a white chocolate square, peanut butter chips, mint chocolate chips, etc.

Makes 8 cakes.