Native English speakers have a long tradition of mocking foreign restaurants for their attempts to translate menus into English. The internet is full of people chortling over menus with comical English translations: “chicken rude and unreasonable”, “soup smell of urine”, that sort of thing.
But occasionally, a foreign translation can reveal something both truthful and poetic. Like recently when my friend Emily saw her favourite pudding, moelleux au chocolat, on a menu in France. It was translated for English-speakers as “softness in the chocolate house”: a perfect description of this little architectural miracle.
Moelleux au chocolat is that small, hot chocolate pudding that, when broken into, floods your plate with molten chocolate gooiness. In English, it is commonly known as chocolate fondant or, occasionally, chocolate lava cake. A pudding that’s also a conjuring trick, it swept through the British restaurant scene in the 1990s (as the even more spectacular crepe suzette did in the 1970s).
Novice cooks may be wary of attempting such magic, but it is actually one of those dishes that is not nearly as hard to make as your awestruck guests will assume. There are only two tasks that require a little care: the melting of the chocolate and the folding in of the egg whites.
The first of these is simply a case of ensuring you cook the chocolate gently. Chocolate is a mixture of fatty cocoa butter, chocolate solids, and sugar. If you heat it too hard, or water comes into contact with it, the solids can coagulate, leaving you with a clumped-up sticky mess. The chances of this happening are massively reduced already by melting it with butter, but make sure anyway that the water underneath is only gently simmering. If you worry it is getting too hot, take the chocolate bowl away from the water for a while. Move slowly and you will be fine.
When folding in the egg whites, the trick is not to knock the trapped air out of the mix. Pour the chocolate mixture into the whisked egg whites. It will fall through to the bottom of the bowl. Now, take a large metal spoon or rubberised spatula (wooden spoons are terrible for bashing the air out) and cut it through the centre of the bowl until it touches the bottom. Pull it towards you up the side of the bowl and rotate it so that you drop the chocolate from the bottom of the bowl on top of the egg whites. Rotate the bowl a quarter of a turn and repeat until the mixture has an even consistency. I find this therapeutic. Don’t worry if there are a few streaks of light brown and white left in the mix. They will disappear when you cook. Better to stir it less than more.
Now pop ’em in the fridge, into the oven, on to plates and sit back while you friends gasp at your genius. That really is magic.
Softness in the chocolate house (chocolate lava cake)
This recipe is adapted from the one I was taught by Claire Ptak, the founder of Violet Cakes bakery. She in turn used to make it when she was pastry chef at Alice Waters’s legendary Chez Panisse restaurant in California. Whatever you do, don’t overcook them. They will continue to bake slightly as they cool down.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 7 minutes
Serves 2-4
85g butter, plus extra for greasing
150g dark chocolate
A pinch of salt
5 tbsp cocoa powder, plus extra for dusting
100g egg whites (about 2)
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 Butter individual mini-pie dishes or ramekins generously. Dust each one with cocoa powder.
2 Melt the butter, chocolate and salt in a large bowl over simmering water. When all is melted (see tips above), sift in the cocoa powder.
3 In a separate bowl, whip together the egg whites and sugar until soft peaks form. Combine with the melted chocolate as directed in the article above.
4 Pour the mixture into the moulds and allow to cool in the fridge for at least half an hour. This will ensure that the centres of the puddings come out nice and runny.
5 Meanwhile, heat your oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Bake in the oven for just 7 minutes. Work a knife around the edge of the mould and then tip the puddings on to a plate to serve with double cream (and a splash of cognac, if you have some around).
A version of this recipe first appeared in Leon: Baking and Puddings (Conran Octopus).
Henry Dimbleby is co-founder of the natural fast-food restaurant chain Leon (@henry_leon). Get your kids cooking at cook5.co.uk
- Our print version incorrectly stated that sugar should be added in step 2: this version is correct.
