Hot Chocolate Cakes

Mary and I ate at Sybaris for the second time about a week ago. The food was delicious, as expected. Dessert was a chocolate sampler, the best of which was a souffle-like cake with a molten center - absolutely delicious.

I thought I'd try making my own. I looked on David Lebovitz's site for a recipe that sounded like the cake, and I found this: Individual Hot Chocolate Cakes.

The cakes didn't turn out quite the same. The recipe has you unmold the cakes onto plates - so the presentation is different. And, even before that, the Sybaris cake had a crispy top, where the Lebovitz cake was a little softer. The center of the Lebovitz cake wasn't molten, just very soft.

That being said, Lebovitz provided yet another winning dessert. The cake was rich and delicious. The cake is so soft it barely holds itself together, and when you "bite" into it, what little structure remains just melts away inside your mouth.

Plus, the cake is very easy to make and doesn't take much time. I'd only change the recipe slightly - I'd be sure to use superfine sugar to line the ramekins, and I'd use ramekins (I don't own any, I used coffee mugs). As it was, the sugar on the outside of the cake was a little grainy and distracted from the cake itself. Plus with such a tall cake mold, there was just too much sugar on the outside.

The next time I want to impress folks with a dessert, this is the one I'll make.