Fallen Chocolate Cake - Cooks Illustrated

Published November 1, 1998.

This undercooked chocolate cake baked in a ramekin is a restaurant staple. Could we translate it for the home kitchen?

The Problem

Restaurant recipes rarely work at home without a great deal of tinkering. Could this be an exception?

The Goal

An intensely flavored chocolate cake with a light texture and an irresistibly runny center.

The Solution

After arriving at satisfactory amounts of butter (a half cup), flour (very little--one recipe had none), chocolate (we wanted a lot--but not too much), and eggs (four whole eggs plus one yolk gave us what we wanted: a cake that was rich and yet light, moist, intense, and dark), we turned our attention to cooking temperature. Four hundred degrees was best, yielding a light, cakelike perimeter around a moist well of intense chocolate. Now all that was left for us to decide was how the home cook would prepare it for serving. We discovered that the batter can be made and poured into the ramekins ahead of time and refrigerated, then baked during dinner. The batter will hold in the refrigerator for up to eight hours, and it's best to take the ramekins out of the fridge for 30 minutes prior to baking.

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