The One-Noted, but forever delicious Molten Chocolate Cake
A recipe, some kitchen gossip, a feminist quote or two, and helpful tips in the kitchen...
Just yesterday, I read a review where a food writer expounded why she does not ordinarily order chocolate desserts in restaurants finding them too, “one noted.” My affection for chocolate is so great I found myself disagreeing all last l evening, and by morning, reciting my favorite desserts to myself like some sort of affirmation: The Flourless Chocolate cake (famous in the late 80’s), the Devil’s food, the chocolate cream pie, the chocolate pudding, until I arrived with a swoosh to the queen of chocolate desserts, the Molten Chocolate Cake, which of course, is so ubiquitous in restaurants now that is seems less amazing than commonplace but nonetheless remains special to me, because food is just like that. I cannot say it better than Jill Filipovice, who wrote, in The H-Spot, The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness, “What we eat and how we eat it anchors experience and memories, shapes and reflects cultures, imbues meaning, and builds social connections. ”
Since my recipe lives in a spiral-bound notebook, in my barely legible sprawl, I can’t say for sure from where it originated.
I know the year, circa 1996—as that is when the cake appeared on menus I still have from those years. The recipe’s origins are still being debated between two, New York City chefs, each taking credit for accidently underbaking a cake—and voila, the self-saucing cake.
Since it’s hard for me to imagine women, even those hard-bake by the hot-house, ego-driven environment of professional kitchens, announcing a mistake, the debate sounds like one of those His stories to me. Even if the mistake happened to be a crowd-pleaser, I would weigh telling a story like this against the reality of what would no doubt my clients suddenly whining about any dish they didn’t understand, asking in that nasally voice, “Is this another one of your mistakes?”
I haven’t cooked professionally for many years, but still hear those voices.
As a professional chef I cooked aboard luxury yachts, and this cake saved my bacon MANY times. Apart from the fiddling separating of a few egg yolks from the whites, this is not a technically arduous recipe. When clients made last minute dinner announcements or when someone had a lover’s spat whose remedy was cake, I mixed this baby up in minutes.
The baked specimen, on a plate, drizzled with raspberry sauce or ice cream, the cake looks fancy. Dressed down, or consumed directly from a ramekin, you can take the cake to bed.
I will say though that in regards to baking time (see cautionary notes below) the cake can be finicky. All cooks have at least one story of a cake sticking stubbornly to the pan. The one time my cakes stuck, my client, a wealthy Brazilian Madame, came down to the galley to express here disappointment.
Imagine: I am in the kitchen, a sweating, red-faced mess bent over lamb racks, running a knife along bones and there appears a millionairess, her cosmetically-perfected nose twitching at what was no doubt my body odor, from the door.
More than twenty years have passed, but I can still see her there—a tall, handsome woman in a Versace jumpsuit, stiff as a young Queen Elizabeth, her eyes flashing.
I judged this (and her) as as too full of what I used to call back then, the aristocratic shit—I did apologize and beg pardon, my sin of not properly dislodging the cak. The reality was that on a yacht anchored off the French Riveria aboard a yacht for upwards of $40,000 a day, the clients had (as the manager reminded me often) put down a deposit for all of my services, including my apologies. Which was really too bad because if those years taught me anything it was that multi-millionaires are kind of like chefs, and need their egos not flattened occasionally. Humility is the fertilizer of happiness. If you want to know where I got that quoke, it came from a hunk of Parmesan I sat atop in a walk-in refrigerator during my sobbing sessions. This would make a great picture, but sadly, I was not taking selfies back thene.
Last, I taught cooking for a brief period of time to adults and children. My method was to teach by subject. Meaning when I taught this cake, all we made was cake. While at first, this was a bit of a tough sell. My idea was that there is nothing better than repetition to make a recipe your own and feel as though it belongs to you, like the flour and the sugar in the pantry.
I had students make three batches of the same cake, and to each batch we added tiny amounts of different ingredients. Hazel nut flour for wheat flour, or a semi-sweet chocolate for the bittersweet— noting how the cacao levels altered the flavors. Taste is so highly personal, but also a collective experience and though some results were better than others, eveyone enjoyed this and tasting food together, and debating the merits of almond flour verses whatever bonded us. My point being that a cake recipe is a formula AND a process, and an experiment…like life.
Warm Chocolate Cakes, Makes Four
6 tablespoons, unsalted butter
3.5 oz bitter chocolate, chopped. Or, 100 grams, if you use a scale. For me, this chocolate which is 62 percent cacao
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
½ cup white, granulated sugar
3 tablespoon All-Purpose flour (I have used gluten free flour blends with a good result, as long as it is not a blend with garbanzo bean flour) and you should bake this immediately, as those gluten free flour blends often have tapioca flour, which gets gummy.
Cocoa powder, for dusting (can use flour in a pinch)
Optional: A tablespoon of crushed candy cane OR a tablespoon of cocoa nibs…add a new complexity.
Last, vanilla bean ice cream or lighted-sweetened whipping cream.
Trick: Haagen Daz vanilla ice cream when melted and poured onto a plate basically the lazy-bitch’s vanilla crème anglaise.
Equipment, you will need the standard bowls and spoons, but also ramekins or small units which hold 4 oz. And then, the parchment paper, or foil? What do you have? Just not plastic wrap, as you do not that want that in your food.
1. Position the rack in the middle of the oven and preheat 350 degrees.
Generously butter and dust four, 3-ounce molds, custard cups or ramekins with cocoa powder. (if you plan on un-molding the hot cake, read below)
Combine the butter and chocolate in a bowl set over a pan with a few inches of simmering water, ensuring the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water, and stir until the chocolate is completely melted. (Alternately, you may heat them together in a microwave, starting with 1 minute on HIGH, then stirring, and finishing in short bursts on 50 percent power as needed until almost melted. Stir together until thoroughly combined.) Remove the bowl from the pan.
While the chocolate and butter are melting, in a medium bowl, separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. Then, put this in a bowl, with a whisk or handheld mixer, beat the whole eggs, plus the yolks, with the sugar.
5. Finish stirring together the chocolate and butter; it should be quite warm. Whisk the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, then stir in the flour by hand, just combined. At this point, you can put the mixture into the fridge for up to two days. When you take out, bring back to room temperature before using.
Divide the batter between the molds.
Transfer the molds to a baking sheet to make them easy to move in and out of the oven (and contain overflow). Bake for 10-15 minutes —you got to watch your oven. The longer you bake, the less "sauce" there will be. Here is another story. When I first tried this recipe, as a pro chef, I overbaked the cakes three separate times. This is one of those deceptively easy recipes where you have to pay attention. If you are nervous about getting this correct and feeling doubtful, double the recipe, or make more batter than you need with the idea you are going to use one or two cakes as the Test Cake…Inevitably, I end up eating these but in my cooking years when screwing something up was going to cause me problems, I always had extra of everything so I could pivot if and when needed.
The emergency remedy for the overbaked cake is The Cheater’s Chocolate sauce.
Melt 4 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate, with 4 ounces of heavy cream, add a teaspoon of vanilla to make a chocolate sauce. If too thick, add small amounts of hot water until you reach the desired consistency. If too bitter, add some brown sugar while mixture is hot.
This is the point I failed, at least, initially. I underbaked, and then overbaked the cakes. The attribute of this cake is that it self-sauces. So, you want the center to still be liquid-but the sides firm enough you could dislodge a cake without making a mess. Anyway, before you attempt to dislodge the cake from the mold, if you are doing that, rest that cake for about two minutes.
All of this is optional and sort of fussy…chef stuff, I suppose, or show off hostess stuff.
Place an overturned plate on top of the mold and holding onto the mold in one hand with a potholder, mitt or dish towel, invert the plate and the mold. Unmold by lifting up one side of the mold; the cake will fall out onto the plate. It's okay if you have to tap or gently shake the ramekin to nudge it out. Serve immediately.
8. I have successfully doubled this recipe for eight servings. I would not recommend tripling the recipe as when I do this, I start to have issues. Therefore, if you need twelve servings, just make the recipe again. Note, the image below is the same darn cake, in a mug, with a chocolate ganache atop, and a caramel swirl atop that. But it looks a lot different than the cake above.
