Cafe Liz

Chocolate souffle a.k.a. fondant

I started making these because they’re the ubiquitous dessert in restaurants around here, and we really enjoyed finishing our meals with a steaming burst of molten chocolate. Who wouldn’t? In any case, I’ve never seen any reason to leave all good things to restaurants; I’d much rather enjoy them here at my house. This allows me to correct what would be the restaurant souffle’s most common fault: way too much solid cake and way too little liquid inside.

While I originally listed this dish as a souffle, as it is commonly known in Israel, I’ve since been informed by more than one person that this is actually a fondant. Why Israelis started referring to them as souffles I don’t know, but in any case, to set the record straight, the term fondant does indeed seem to be a better fit.

In any case, I usually add a little alcohol to this dessert. Since it doesn’t bake for more than 8 or 10 minutes, almost none of the alcohol evaporates, leaving you with a dessert that could get you (OK, me) a little tipsy.

Choose a liquor that you like, since you will be able to taste it once its baked; I’ve listed rum (a 7-year-old rum I picked up in Cuba) in the recipe below as my liquor of choice, and it’s quite good that way, but you could also consider using triple sec, amaretto or anything else that suits your fancy and works well with chocolate.

You could also just leave the liquor out altogether, in which case you’d probably want to use a little less flour.

For each serving:

25 g butter
2 T sugar
1 1/2 T good cocoa powder
2 T flour
1 egg
1/4 t vanilla
2 t good rum

Melt the butter. Beat in the sugar, the vanilla, your liquor of choice and then the cocoa powder and the egg. Add the flour.

Prepare ramekins or souffle papers by greasing them with butter and then coating the butter with a layer of sugar. Put in a teaspoon or so of sugar, shake it around so that it sticks to the butter, and dump out any extra (or leave it — your choice). Add the batter to the ramekins.

Bake at 180 degrees C (or in your toaster) for about 8-10 minutes. Keep an eye on it — nothing is worse than an overcooked fondant. Once the top begins to harden, you can take it out — it’ll be very gooey inside. If you want a slightly more solid dessert, let it bake a little longer.

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