With it being Valentine’s Day I thought I’d make a molten chocolate cake for dessert. My husband and I are both fans of this cake, especially when it’s made well. Besides the overall flavor of the cake, the most important part of it is the center. It needs to ooze out onto the plate and form a warm pool of chocolate. But it can’t ooze too dramatically. It needs to ooze slowly.

It’s really hard to get it just right. I made one version which involved a low flour cake mix that comprised of sugar, egg white, flour, and melted chocolate. I filled a ramekin with batter and dropped in a ball of frozen ganache. It was okay but not the best. The two best versions that we’ve had have been at The Chart House and Morton’s respectively.

Aside from trying yet another recipe, I could always try a mix like the one pictured here from Shop.com for $7.99. As you can see from the picture, the cake is photographed doing exactly what it should - oozing it’s chocolate onto the plate. A mix is a real asset because when done from scratch, the cake can be incredibly time consuming. If you don’t want to do mail order, I notice that Dr Oetker has a mix - I find it in supermarkets in the states sometimes even though it’s a German company.

If you do want to make hot chocolate cake from scratch how do you go about doing it? First, when looking for recipes understand that there are two different kinds. One includes only one batter, the other includes batter plus ganache. The one batter version is simpler but may not ooze as much. If you can find the Morton’s Cookbook , I’d start by trying that recipe since the cake is very good. My own version didn’t come out nearly as good as the one in that cookbook.

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