Giveaway: Heston Blumenthal! Also I'm Back For Good (or Evil)

Because 'free' and 'food' are two of my very favourite four-letter F words.

Thank you for your patience - erratic non-blogging behaviour will end now as I leave the hallowed halls of law school behind! And here is a not very cunning nor subtle giveaway to win back the favour of my favourite friends (i.e. obsessively foodie and I don't have to change out of my PJs to talk to you): a hedonistic Heston competition!

The next best thing to being his woman?

Recently (by shamelessly subscribing to myself), I've realised that the 'subscribe' function to this blog via email is not as reliable as I'd hoped - there's a time lag of at least 24 hours and sometimes the post just never shows up. This is a shame, especially with my last post on top Melbourne market eats, because by the time the post appeared in my inbox, the market for that weekend had closed! 'Liking' my Facebook page (link on your right) is really the quickest way to get real-time updates, and here are two incentives:

Incentive One: The Fat Duck Cookbook

In hefty hardcover!

I'm waiting for my own copy to arrive and it's destined to be one of the many (many) cookbooks I have that I try maybe once and then relegate to wistful reading (while resentfully eyeing up my subpar tiny kitchen). Luckily, Heston is a fabulous writer so there's much pleasure to be had from vicariously cooking, say, 'sardine on toast'.

Credit: Dominic Davies

Incentive Two: Total Perfection: In Search of Total Perfection

In paperback!

This is one of the best and surprisingly, funniest, reads I've ever had, detailing Heston's very involved attempts to 'perfect' some very ordinary dishes like roast chicken, spaghetti bolognese, and fish and chips. Reading it was also the inspiration for the chicken and batter bomb that exploded in my apartment when I was infected by the bug to perfect 'fried chicken'. Bonus? Colour photographs and full, final recipes - I don't suppose you ever imagined you'd need ten hours to make a single plate of risotto. Or dry ice while cooking chilli con carne. Or protective googles for your treacle tart.

The Rules

1. 'Like' my Facebook page if you haven't already done so (if you have, proceed to Step 2).
2. Leave a comment on this post telling me: what dish would you like to perfect and why?.
3. You can stop now and you'll automatically go into the draw to win Total Perfection: In Search of Total Perfection. If you'd like to win The Fat Duck Cookbook, proceed to Step 4.
4. Get your friends, family, MX flirtation, secretary's children to 'like' my Facebook page as well. For you to win they must 'like' it AND let me know who sent them by tagging your name on a post on the page or shooting me an email at melbournemunchkin @ gmail.com (no spaces). Something along the lines of "Dwight Schrute sent me here because you bought his beets" or "Gob Bluth sent me here to win some free book! Come on!" or even a simple "Yada yada sent me here".
5. The person who sends the most new likes my way wins the cookbook!
6. Competition ends 12/12/2011 at 12:12pm. Winner will be announced on my Facebook page, and I'll send you a Facebook message/email as well. Open to anyone in the world though you might want to check with me first if I'd be shipping to an igloo or Bedouin tent.

That's simple enough I hope! Certainly simpler than anything you'll learn from Heston. This is an entirely non-sponsored giveaway. In case you're wondering why Heston fever has hit a canine-level pitch in this household, it's because I'll be off for a holiday to London (baby!) in a little over a month and dining at his new restaurant: Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. You'll hear it here first of course. Don't worry, I'll still be posting up mostly Melbourne munchings even while I'm away. I imagine the immense backlog of posts is good practice for my future legal career.

On that note, new post in three days!

Recipe: Practical Praline

Candy you can do.

Here are two tips to navigating queues in supermarkets:

1. The number of people in line is not the gauge for waiting time. Some couples and peer groups will stand together simply to purchase one or two items. Unfathomably, they don’t split up and join different queues to hedge their chances of getting through the system quicker. Capitalise on such follies.
   
   
2. A line may look short, but avoid loiterers:

• Example 1: Children sneaking confectionery from the counter. When their carers finally notice (usually while unloading 20 Kit Kat bars onto the belt in disbelief), screaming ensues. Meanwhile you’re the chump watching from behind as six Joe Bloggs pass through the next counter without fuss.
  
• Example 2: Anyone resembling my mother and her friends, unless you’re particularly partial to finding out how old the cashier is, how long before the roast chicken goes on special, why the oranges aren’t oranger, and other such small talk inanities.

Or if it’s a sweet hit you’re after, avoid the shops altogether because this will take you less time than locating your keys and putting your shoes on:

1. Dump a half cup of sugar in a pot with a few drops of water (just enough to dampen). Use low heat. To dissolve lumps, shake don’t stir.
   
   
2. While waiting for the colour of the sugar to turn, scatter anything crunchy on a tray: nuts are the most likely choice, here I’ve used pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and sunflower seeds too. Even crushed cereal might work. Once the caramel forms, pour (very!) quickly onto tray.
   
   
3. Cool. Crack. Eat.

And that is how praline gets miraculously made in the last ten seconds of a Masterchef dessert challenge.

A heart for breaking.

How do you deal with a sugar craving?

Recipe: Are You (Fried) Chicken?

It’s my party and I’ll fry if I want to.

No time like the weekend to get your fried on! Today we take an extreme detour from the sugar highway to the Land of the Fry: America, baby! It’s funny how the brain works. This week I subjected mine to the happy combination of reading Heston Blumenthal’s In Search of Perfection with the television on in the background. About twenty KFC advertisements later, I had a powerful craving for some fried chicken.

Perfectly crispy. And preferably shaped like a dessert. Or a seashell or something.

Signature range notwithstanding, the red, white and finger-lickin’ all over clearly wasn’t going to cut it. Lacking the hefty Heston funding, I embarked on a journey appropriate for the theme – the kind with Google as your tour guide and requiring no more movement than the range of your mouse.

Refusing to chicken out, I’m now sitting (quite heavily!) on the other side of four fried chicken meals in a row, and my apartment is littered with recipes mostly sporting the prefix ‘Southern’, ‘Mom’s Best’, or ‘X-TRA CRISPY’ but by gorge, I think I’ve got it!

It’s important to note that this isn’t so much a recipe as it is a method. Fats on, fats off, Mr Miyagi!

Wet Ingredients

One chicken (in pieces) (or 4 legs/breast/thighs – whichever turns your head!)

Two/three beaten eggs or buttermilk

Oil (A neutral oil is best, like peanut)

Basic Dry Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

Salt and pepper to your taste

Optional Variation on Dry Ingredients

Use your imagination!

For increased crisp: substitute some of the flour with tempura flour.

For seasoning: If you want an Asian-style fried chicken that’s more brown, add paprika and use white pepper. Other great seasonings include garlic powder, onion powder, chilli powder, or curry powder.

In these attempts, I used a 1:2 ratio of tempura flour to regular flour, paprika, white pepper, and garlic powder.

Instructions

1. Mix the dry ingredients together by shaking them in a big freezer bag.

2. Soak the chicken pieces in buttermilk for 20 minutes, or simply dredge them thoroughly in the beaten egg/buttermilk.

3. Put the wet chicken pieces into the bag, twist or seal it shut, and toss the bag until each piece is thoroughly coated with the flour mixture.

4. Put the chicken on a plate, cover with a clean cloth or sheet of plastic, and leave it in the fridge until the coating has reached a paste-like consistency.

It will be sticky. This will take over half an hour. For ease I suggest you complete these steps early in the day or the night before.

5. Fill your skillet (or pot) with oil (1/3 full). You don’t need the chicken to be fully submerged in oil.

Test oil with a wooden chopstick or the handle of a wooden spoon to make sure it's hot enough.

6. Heat the oil until it begins to smoke. Put the chicken in and flash-fry on one side, and then turn over. Chicken should be lightly golden all over.

Flash-frying on the first side.

7. Cover the skillet, turn the heat down low and leave to cook for 25-30 minutes.

Not yet crispy.

8. Uncover. The chicken should be cooked, golden, but soggy. Turn the heat up high again to finish frying to a crisp. This will take a few minutes.

9. Drain and serve!

The Result

Fool-proof fried chicken that is crunchy crispy but moist, juicy and (importantly!) cooked inside!

Mine gets pretty brown from an excess of paprika and the zealous heat of my stove, but the meat is always as tender as a tot.

It may not look like a cookie, but this chooky is pretty perfect! And I can always let the fried slide.

P.S. This post marks the inaugural occasion of my new Nikon SLR being used! I still have a heap of backlogged photos from my canny old Canon though.

Recipe: 'S-crab-tacular, 's-crab-tacular!

Crustaceans in the vernacular.

If there is one thing I’ve learnt from my shameless indulgence in a glut of reality cooking shows (ranging from Masterchef Australia to Masterchef-across-the-Tasman-and-every-other-continent-but-Antartica), it is that the mark of a successful amateur chef lies in a canny culinary ancestry. Never been to cooking school? Doesn’t matter when you’ve been generating gnocchi with nonna since the nursery — or if Junior Masterchef is anything to go by, since your first lip-smacked “Nyum nyum!”. Been working in an utterly-unrelated industry for yonks? Who cares when your produce-producing parents taught you to churn cheese with your right hand and sweat shallots with the left? As far as the cameras are concerned, it’s been time well-spent nurturing the blooming bud of your inner inheritance.

Wok Fried Black Pepper Crab

It is therefore to my endless envy and annoyance that I had the genetic misfortune of being born into a family big on the consumption end of the meal, but with limited interest in the creation side of things. It is a thin tin of recipes that I have taken from the family home, mother having happily surrendered stove duty to my aunt for the first 18 years of my life, and my aunt in turn being of the philosophy that a half-pound of pork plonked in a pot of boiling water is fab feed for a family of five — a powerful propensity for motion sickness means she hasn’t ventured outside the home in almost three decades and is still waiting for the price of pork to fall back to “five cents, maybe seven a catty”. This perhaps explains my ardent adoration of Mr. Gordon Ramsay and Ms. Amy Beh, my kitchen god-parents.

Every now and then however, I am caught by a wind of food nostalgia and it whips me back into the child hungrily watching from a safe corner in the kitchen, wielding a Barbie distractedly and unconsciously scraping tidbits onto the table of my memory. Such was the case last weekend when I spied with my little eye a delectable blue creature that swims. And I don’t mean Hayden Quinn in his Cronulla budgie smugglers.

Blue swimmer crab

Wok Fried Black Pepper Crab

(Recipe adapted from Matt Moran’s on Masterchef)

Ingredients

4 whole blue swimmer crabs
3/4 cup vegetable oil for frying
4 tablespoons black peppercorns
8 cloves garlic, sliced
1 big chilli, sliced (or 2 if you are spicily inclined)
8 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 teaspoons castor sugar
500ml water
1 bunch of spring onions, finely sliced on the diagonal
1 bunch coriander, leaves picked

Method

1. To prepare the crabs, twist their claws off. Prise open the shell from the back.

2. Take out the gills and mustard. Cut the crab bodies into two.

2. Heat up the vegetable oil in the wok (I used a large pot) until smoking. Add the crabs and sauté quickly until their colour turns to orange. This should take 1-3 minutes. Remove the crab immediately. Some small bits of crab may have fallen in the oil. Leave them in there as this will add flavour.

3. Putting the crab aside, add the black peppercorns, chilli and garlic to the wok/pot and cook for 1 minute until fragrant. Speedily mix in the soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and water (hence the need for a mise en place).

4. Return the crab to the wok/pot. Bring to the boil then simmer for 5-7 minutes. Mix in the spring onion in the last minute.

5. Serve with coriander sprinkled on top.

The stuff of ‘nyum nyums’! This was a great and very easy recipe.

Oddly enough the lessons I’ll never need again are the ones I savour most. Like how to stand squelching my toes in muddy slippers squinting into a Styrofoam box of caught crawling crabs. How mum would poke them with a stick to find the feistiest. How to tease a wily escapee out from under the piano by hooking onto its raffia-bonded claws with a rolled-out wire clothes hanger. How aunt would kill them by stabbing a chopstick quickly into the flap underside. How she hated being the one to have to end their lives.

How I never thought I would one day miss the taste of tasteless pork soup.

Recipe: Chewy Chocolate Chip and Almond Cookies

When they won't let us eat cake.


Mama*’s got a fabulous toy – and it’s brand stamping new!


*For those sadly uninitiated with Tyra-speak (a.k.a. the language formerly known as 'ghetto slang'), mama refers to me and not, literally, my mama who, much to the deprivation of my childhood, has little interest in stamping, baking, or cookies requiring more effort than a queue for half-offs at closing time.


Which is why when I bake cookies, I have a tendency to fall back on my Ol’ Faithful of a recipe. It’s not glamorous, but it’s very reminiscent of the chewy soft cookies I grew up chomping – Mrs Fields’!

Warning: This recipe is very easy, but makes for an insanely huge quantity of cookie dough. I usually (a) give away plenty; (b) consume enough to power small countries; and (c) freeze the leftover dough in tubes, for continuing cookie comas in the weeks (oh alright, days) to come.


Wouldn’t it be more economical, you say so cleverly, and healthier too (insert grimace), to simply halve the recipe?

Clearly, my friend, you are not in possession of a beautiful mind. As long as you have an electric mixer to hand, and I personally wouldn’t attempt this recipe (again) without, the effort of mixing a half-portion of dough is the same as mixing a full amount. So for an equal measure of energy, I produce twice the output. It’s a simple mathematical equation.

Yes, I drew this.

But that makes no sense, you say, you still have to consume considerable effort and money purchasing twice the ingredients and then to locate large vessels in which to do your mixing (I recommend a huge bowl or a basin even) and post-baking you’ll have the added problem of making space in your freezer already entirely too full due to your inability to reduce the portions of anything else you cook. At this point I interrupt you and say you’ve gotten extremely droll will you please leave me in peace to bake my cookies otherwise you shan’t have any and then you retreat into the corner and the world can move on.


You can view the original recipe at the link above, but as it's American, I’ve converted the recipe (with my modifications) to metric. I also like doing this because it means I get to take my digital weighing machine out to play; it just tare-s me apart how good-looking and intelligent this baby is, and it can crunch my numbers anytime.

Ingredients:

560g all-purpose flour (or 4.5 USA cups)
2 teaspoons baking soda
455g butter (or 2 USA cups)
330g packed brown sugar (or 1.5 USA...well you get the idea)
100g white sugar (or ½ USA cup)
2x 3.4 ounce packets instant vanilla pudding mix (I used Cottee’s Instant Vanilla Pudding, 100g each)
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
670g semisweet chocolate chips (or 4 USA cups...but I chuck in as much as the dough can take – in this particular exercise, this amounted to three bags of Nestlé Choc Bits: 375g+250g+250g)
244g chopped walnuts (or 2 USA cups, and you can substitute for any nuts you like – I used almonds this time)

Directions:

1. Sift together the flour and baking soda, set aside.

2. In a (very!) large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts.

3. NOT in the original recipe but which I think is imperative: CHILL THE DOUGH BEFORE USING. Otherwise your cookies will just spread everywhere. And that is just as unattractive in cookies as it is in people. I usually just leave mine in the refrigerator for 4 hours to overnight.


4. When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.

5. Drop the cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. (As the dough typically becomes quite solid from the cold, I usually put on plastic gloves and scrape out balled chunks. If you have children around, they are partial to such activities and make for excellent sources of labour. I would never say free labour because as everyone knows, that would (a) make them slaves, which is a crime; and (b) children don’t come cheap. I expect you expected a joke about politics, but both parties are doing a fantastic job of that all on their own.)


6. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden brown. Note: Even when cooked, cookies will still be as soft as ever - just leave them to cool and they'll be perfect!

***If using a cookie stamper, you should use golf-ball sized chunks of dough, flatten them slightly and then give it all you’ve got. Unfortunately, this appears to be the wrong sort of cookie to be using a stamper on:

Before.

After.

Oh well – I suppose that’s the way the cookies crumbles! (You knew I’d get that in there somewhere, didn’t you?) And you can’t be disappointed at all with a jar (and freezer) full of cookies, can you?


I know I'm not!


In case you were wondering what makes these cookies so darn, tootin’ awesome - the proof of the pudding is in the eating (i.e. keeps the cookies soft and chewy)!

Santa never had a chance.

New-Age Valentine's: Ladies Who Do Dinner

...And we cook!


Absolutely cannot resist putting pictures up from the very fancy and fantastic girls-night-in with gorgeous friends A (whose debut appearance on this blog occurred here) and YS, of pretty pink party infamy.

Rule of the night: No boys - and putting what our mamas gave us on display!

Like:

A's smoked salmon and mango salad (with balsamic vinegar dressing)

Freshly-shucked oysters with lemon

The main: My crispy-skin salmon (insanely easy, and I can't claim credit for the technique, but guaranteed to impress!):

YS' side of roast mushrooms, aubergine, onion, capsicum, tomatoes, potatoes and carrot (yeah the lady worked hard!):

To finish: Estrogen-fueled chocolatey desserts (of course!):

My now-stalwart chocolate fondant, with Sara Lee French Vanilla ice-cream

YS' to-die-for chocolate strawberries

Lethal combination. Enough said.

And then we wiled the night away with raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens (read: curious card games and tantalizing talk). Like all good girls in white dresses and blue (satin) sashes should of course.

Ahh ladies, best (early) Valentine's Day dinner ever! Hi-fives and knowing smiles all around - hurrah for being girly girls!

The Cookbook Challenge: Week 6: I Made a Christmas Dinner!!

I'm a rat, I'm a clever, clever rat...

Of course it says Week 6 in the title, because it is the sixth week of The Cookbook Challenge with a Christmas theme but to be perfectly fair this is my first um cameo foray into The Cookbook Challenge, having been unable to partake in the festivities prior to this week due to moving, inadequate supplies, and work, work, work!

The Family Roast Leg of Lamb

Insanely Impressive Dessert

Well no matter, here I am now and mostly because I couldn't resist showing off the three-course Christmas dinner prepared for G's extended family at the first-ever Christmas party that I (we) hosted! Oh the pressure, the pain...the trials and tribulations of suburban life!

And thus:

Course One (not technically a cookbook recipe):
Rosettes of Smoked Salmon with Brie Chesse & Crackers & Rocket Salad with Quail's Eggs


I know this is highly unprofessional, but in my excitement (nervousness and terror) over the entire dinner, I only succeeded in taking pictures of the salmon from this particular course. So I will just briefly run through the (very simple) processes that took place:

To make smoked salmon rosettes:
1. Fold a strip of smoked salmon in half length-ways (rougher edges outside, to form 'petals').
2. Roll at an angle.
3. Place on plate.
4. Use scissors (if necessary) to make little artistic cuts in the roll so as to have the 'petals' appear more palatable.

For home-made olive oil and lemon juice salad dressing:
1. Combine equal parts of fresh lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil.
2. Add crushed cloves of garlic (as many as you like depending on how much you like garlic - I love garlic, so I put in 8 cloves per cup of dressing.)
3. Add 1-2 tsp salt.
4. Add 1-2 tsp black pepper.
5. Sprinkling of parsley flakes (because it was there.)

For boiling quail's eggs for salad:
1. Put eggs in small pot, fill with water (at room temperature) to an inch above eggs.
2. Bring eggs to a small boil, cover pot with lid, simmer for 10-15 minutes (you want them hard-boiled, so it doesn't really matter as long as they're cooked through).
3. Peel. Chill.

Main Course: Garlic and Rosemary Leg of Lamb
Cookbook: The Australian Women's Weekly Great Lamb Cookbook


(Recipe adapted from the very basic garlic and rosemary lamb roast, which had no sides, and just the lamb - so I'm detailing the recipe here as I made it.)

You will need:

Basic lamb recipe:

• A leg of lamb (I used a 1.75kg/3.88pound leg)
• Fresh rosemary sprigs (2-3 minimum)
• Wild rosemary from bottle (as cost of fresh rosemary can be prohibitive)
• One bulb of garlic
• Black pepper
• Salt
• Sprinkling of mixed Italian herbs (basil, thyme, oregano) for looks
• Plenty of (extra) virgin olive oil

For sides:

• Potatoes (baby ones are excellent for roasting, but you can use any size and cut them as you like)
• 3-4 Carrots (or two if they're massive)
• 4-5 Tomatoes (egg tomatoes if you can get them, but any medium or large ones will do very nicely as well)
• One onion bulb
• One garlic bulb
• Black pepper, salt, (extra) virgin olive oil as above

Preparation:

The Night Before

1. Pierce the lamb all over with small slits about 2cm long and a 3/4 inch deep. As many as you can. Place in roasting dish (you can just use a disposable aluminium one like I did without having to buy a huge roasting pan you'll only dig out once a year, if that).
2. Chop up fresh rosemary sprigs. Reserve twigs.
3. Peel one bulb of garlic and slice into garlic chips (not length-wise).
4. Stuff each slit with a garlic chip and a pinchful of rosemary.
5. Place excess garlic and rosemary, and rosemary twigs underneath the lamb leg.
6. Drizzle with copious amounts of the olive oil, and black pepper. (Do NOT salt your lamb at this stage.)
7. Generously sprinkle the wild rosemary from the bottle (or use fresh rosemary if you have it obviously) all over the leg of lamb (pictures below).
8. Add a sprinkling of mixed Italian herbs over the top of the lamb if you have it.
9. Glad-wrap, place in fridge overnight.

On The Day of Reckoning

4:00pm

To Prepare Sides of Vegetables:

1. Peel carrots, cut into slices.
2. Peel onions, cut into slices.
3. Peel garlic, chop roughly.
4. Cut egg-tomatoes length wise, or if you are using normal tomatoes, cut into quarters.
5. Peel potatoes, chop into required size (at least halve them). Try to make potato chunks as evenly-sized as possible. Parboil potatoes by doing the following steps.
6. Place chunks of potatoes in a pot, fill with (room-temp/cold) water up to an inch-above the potatoes.
7. Bring to boil.
8. Cover pot with lid, simmer for 5-10 minutes depending on how huge your chunks are.

Back to the Meat:

1. While waiting for potatoes to boil, get your lamb leg out of the fridge (it should now be about 4:20pm) because you need to bring it to room temperature before you roast it. Transfer lamb leg temporarily from roasting tray to your chopping board.
2. Preheat oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Most ovens need at least a 1/2 hour to bring it's temperature up to this point, so be prepared. If your oven is slower than most, you can begin 45 minutes before, if it's faster, then 30 minutes should do, etc.
3. Make a 'bed' for the lamb leg with the onions and carrots in the roasting tray.
4. Drain potatoes in colander.
   
5. Roughen them up by shaking your colander such that you can see all the edges of the potatoes becoming 'furry', and the surface is 'broken up'. This will give you crisp roasted potatoes.
6. Place potatoes and tomatoes alternately around the lamb leg.
7. Drizzle entire tray and all its contents with olive oil, black pepper, and rosemary. Rub the olive oil into the lamb to make sure its really coated. Sprinkle some salt over everything now.
   

This is the finished 'prep' picture:


It is now ready to go into the oven.

5:00pm
9. Place lamb in oven (now preheated to 220) and leave for 20 minutes. This step is to crisp up the skin of the lamb, much like searing.
10. During this time, cut out a sheet of aluminum foil about the size of the roasting tray.

5:20pm
9. Take lamb out of the oven. Turn temperature down to 180, and place the aluminium foil sheet loosely over the top of the roasting tray. No need to press down the sides as this is just to protect the vegs from burning, and you still want some air in there so the skin doesn't get soggy.
10. Place back in oven, continue roasting at 180.
11. Start taking the temperature of the lamb from about 6:00pm, using a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the lamb. You want to avoid opening the oven too much, so you can maybe do this once at 6:00 or 6:10.
12. Whenever the temperature of the lamb reaches 63 degrees Celsius (this occurred around 6:30pm for me, which is the second time I checked), take the lamb out of the oven and rest for 15-20 minutes.

Voila!

The lamb was abso-bloody-lutely perfectly cooked, with the innermost meat closest to the bone about medium rare. If you like your lamb a bit more red, take it out when it reaches 60. I would not recommend cooking lamb any more done than this!

As you can see the entire leg was as moist as moist can be, and the juices from the lamb and veg combined meant that there was no need to make any gravy. Some store-bought mint jelly was served as well but many just had the lamb as good as it was on its own! *beams proudly*


Dessert: Gordon Ramsay's Chocolate Fondants
Cookbook: Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy

You will need:

• 50g melted butter , for brushing
• cocoa powder , for dusting
• 200g good-quality dark chocolate , chopped into small pieces (I used Lindt 70%)
  
• 200g butter , in small pieces
• 200g golden caster sugar
• 4 eggs and 4 yolks
• 200g plain flour

Method:

The Night Before

1. First get your moulds ready. Using upward strokes, heavily brush the melted butter all over the inside of the pudding mould. Place the mould in the fridge or freezer.
2. Place a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, then slowly melt the chocolate and butter together. Remove bowl from the heat and stir until smooth. Leave to cool for about 10 mins.
3. In a separate bowl whisk the eggs and yolks together with the sugar until thick and pale and the whisk leaves a trail; use an electric whisk if you want. Sift the flour into the eggs, then beat together.
4. Pour the melted chocolate into the egg mixture in thirds, beating well between each addition, until all the chocolate is added and the mixture is completely combined to a loose cake batter.
5. Take moulds out of the freezer. Brush more melted butter over the chilled butter, then add a good spoonful of cocoa powder into the mould. Tip the mould so the powder completely coats the butter. Tap any excess cocoa back into the jar, then repeat with the next mould.
6. Tip the fondant batter into a jug, then evenly divide between the moulds. Chill or freeze.

Halfway Through Main Course

1. Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Place the fondants on a baking tray, then cook for 10-12 mins (takes about 20 minutes from frozen) until the tops have formed a crust and they are starting to come away from the sides of their moulds. You will be able to see the butter 'bubbling' at the sides as the crust comes away. Remove from the oven, then leave to sit for 1 min before turning out.
2. Loosen the fondants by moving the tops very gently so they come away from the sides, easing them out of the moulds. Tip each fondant slightly onto your hand so you know it has come away, then tip back into the mould ready to plate up.
   

Ta-daa!

Serve with ice-cream of course - I used Haagen Daz Macadamia Nut to great effect!

And there you go, my first dinner party and first Cookbook Challenge post! I am so proud!