Fudgy Treat for Your Valentine

Get ready for some real sweetness this week because we are making  chocolatey fudgy pudding cakes today.

Besides hearts and love, chocolate is often most associated with Valentine’s Day. If you want to impress your sweetie and make a nice little treat for the two of you, try out the recipe below. The cakes are a little different from a molten lava cake which you usually dump out of the ramekin and is quite rich and runny. These have more of a cakey top and outside but when you get to the sunken in middle, it’s is full of gooey fudgy pudding like-filling.

You can cut down the recipe if you’re just making it for you and your Valentine, this recipe will make 6-8 cakes depending on the size of your ramekins.

First of all, butter those ramekins so nothing burns and sticks too much and then place the ramekins on a baking sheet just in case there is some bubbling over. You can even line the baking sheet with tin foil if you don’t want to have to wash the sheet afterwards. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

You will need the following ingredients...

2/3 cup of cocoa powder

6 Tbsp. of butter

¼ cup of semisweet chocolate

¾ cup of flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 cup of granulated sugar

1/3 cup of brown sugar

1/3 cup of milk

1 tbsp. vanilla

1 large egg yolk

¼ tsp. salt

1 ½ cups of weak coffee

In a heat proof bowl, heat up 1/3 cup of the cocoa, the butter, and the chocolate in the microwave until all melted together. Make sure you stir it often. Set aside and let cool for a bit.

In a small bowl, whisk the flour and baking powder together.

In another bowl, whisk up the rest of the cocoa with the brown sugar and 1/3 cup of the granulated sugar. Set aside.

In yet another bowl, this time a larger one, whisk the remaining granulated sugar with the milk, vanilla, egg yolk, and salt. 

Add in the chocolate mixture followed by the flour mixture. 

Divide the batter amongst the ramekins. We used a heaping ¼ cup measuring cup to fill the ramekins up with. Smooth them out a bit and then sprinkle the sugar chocolate mix over the tops (about 2 Tbsp. per cake). 

Lastly, you can pour about 3 Tbsp. of your weak coffee over each cake. You can use any type of coffee that you like. I used instant coffee because I made the cakes at night and didn’t want to brew a whole pot. You can also use water if you really don’t like coffee.

Bake the cakes until they are puffed up and bubbling, 15-20 minutes. Try not to over bake them as you don’t want dry pudding cakes. So keep your eye on them. 

Don’t be alarmed when you take them out of the oven and let them cool; they will fall in the middle so it looks like a big crater in the center. This is supposed to happen. 

While you let the cakes cool, whip up some cream to serve in the center or you can put vanilla ice cream in the center as well. Whatever you like. 

After the cakes have cooled for about 15 minutes (you want to eat them warm not super hot), serve to your sweetie or to whomever you are baking them for and enjoy.