by: Kate McMillan
Cook Time
12 minutes
Prep Time
10 minutes
Yield
Serves 4–6
Total Time
12 minutes
Prep Time
10 minutes
Yield
Serves 4–6
summary
Valentine’s Day calls for a chocolate dessert and these molten chocolate heart cakes are super impressive while still being really easy to make. Use high-quality chocolate for best results. Top the cakes with powdered sugar, a scoop of vanilla ice cream or fresh berries, if you like.
ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, plus more for greasing ramekins
- 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, broken into pieces
- 3 eggs
- 2 egg yolks
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
directions
- Preheat the oven to 450°F. Grease two heart-shaped cake pans or four 6-ounce ramekins with butter. Place on a baking sheet and set aside.
- Add 2 inches of water in a saucepan and set over medium heat. When water is simmering, reduce heat to low and place a stainless steel mixing bowl on top of the saucepan, making sure it does not touch the water. Add the butter and chocolate and stir occasionally until almost completely melted. Remove from heat and let cool.
- Add the eggs, yolks and sugar to a mixing bowl and whisk vigorously until light yellow, about 45 seconds. Add the chocolate mixture and then stir in the flour. Divide batter evenly among the prepared cake pans or ramekins and transfer to the oven. Bake for 12 minutes (or 10 minutes for ramekins); the edges should be cooked but the center will still be runny. Serve at once.
notes
When you take the cakes out of the oven, they will not be completely set in the middle. Residual heat will continue to cook the cakes for a bit.
These cakes are best served as soon as you take them out of the oven, but the batter can be made a couple hours in advance.
These heart-shaped cake pans are on the bigger side so you can enjoy one by yourself or serve family-style with spoons and let everyone dig in.
If you don’t have heart-shaped cake pans, divide the cake batter among four 6-ounce ramekins and reduce the cooking time to 10 minutes.
