Melting Chocolate-Caramel Minicake

Claire worked and wrote for Sight Seeker’s Delight for 7 years – read more here.

For those days when you don’t give a damn about diets (aka those days when you’re French).

Is it funny because it’s true, or sad because it’s true? The French certainly don’t seem to go on diets, generally keeping to their carb & cream with a side of wine ways.

I’m sure they don’t eat chocolate every day, but they certainly have ingredients here which well melt your heart… such as confiture de lait, holy cow.

I will admit, the first time I made this I failed miserably. What came out of the oven was a congealed distinctly non-cake-like mess that somehow didn’t even taste good. I was pretty horrified.

But we get back on the horse, so I tried again and this time, the kitchen magic WORKED. So without further ado I present to you, my friends, the right recipe for these mouthwatering molten chocolate caramel amazecakes.

Adapted from a Nestlé recipe

Ingredients

• 200 g / 7oz dark chocolate (at least 70% is best)
• 100 g / 7 Tbsp butter plus a bit extra for ramekins
• 4 eggs
• 50 g / 1/3c + 1 Tbsp flour
• Pinch of cinnamon
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 100 g / 1/2c sugar
• 100 g / 1/2c caramel (I used Bonne Maman brand Confiture de Lait, aka dulce de leche. You can make your own –see below)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 200 C / 390F

2. Cut up the bar of chocolate into chunks. Cut the butter into a few chunks, too.

3. In a large bowl, melt the chocolate and butter together. I do this in the microwave (medium heat, about 2 minutes but I stop to stir it about every 45 seconds). Don’t burn your chocolate! You can also melt it in a bain-marie if you don’t have a microwave.

4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until they’re light in color and a bit fluffy

5. Add the chocolate/butter mixture, flour, and spices to the egg mixture and stir well

6. Butter your ramekins, then pour a bit of extra sugar in and tilt the ramekins to spread it around

7. Fill each ramekin 1/3 with chocolate batter. Top with a tablespoon of confiture de lait, then quickly top off chocolate. Do not all your ramekins all the way to the top, only go about 2/3.

Note: I use Bonne Maman brand confiture de lait, aka dulce de leche. You can make your own pretty easily, with sweetened condensed milk and heat. There are other ways too… this is a great site detailing 5 different ways to make confiture de lait. I promise, it’s pretty easy. So if your store doesn’t have this (it might be hard to find outside of France), you still have options!

8. Put ramekins in preheated oven for 8-9 minutes. When you take them out, they are going to be a bit liquidy still in the center… this is normal. That will solidify a little bit as they cool.

9. Let them cool about 10 minutes, then invert them onto a plate. Top with a bit of extra confiture de lait (optional but highly recommended!) and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

10. EAT EAT EAT ENJOY!