chocolate cake in a jar // baking for valentine’s day

As I wrote last week, I keep on eating a bit more sweet stuff during February, ’cause it’s cold and mostly gray here and I like to be comforted by cake and cookies and pies. And chocolate.

The first time I had this tiny chocolate cake with a liquid core was at Café Cantona and it became my favorite dessert really quick. I like the combination of hot liquid chocolate and a crispy crust. Not to forget that it tastes best with pure vanilla ice cream.

And then, recently, in one of my favorite cooking shows on TV (yeah, I am doing that…) they prepared this little cake in a jar, which already had become a classic. But I never made it before and so I watched carefully and prepared it right away. And then I was thinking, why not sharing it for all of you who need a last minute gift for Valentines Day, ’cause since it’s made in a jar you can store it easily in the fridge a couple of days or even freeze it and bake and serve it when you like.

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CHOCOLATE CAKE IN A JAR

You will need – for 2 portions:

30 g flour

30 g sugar

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

90 g dark chocolate

90 g butter

1 lemon

2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar for greasing the jars

And here is how to make the Chocolate Cake In A Jar – in 20 minutes:

Grease the jars (or cupcake baking cups) with butter and sprinkle them with brown sugar. Add the chocolate and butter in a small bowl and put them on the stove over a water bath to melt.
Stir the eggs and the yolks in another bowl well with a whisk, add sugar and flour and mix briefly with a blender. Add the melted chocolate to the egg mixture and add a pinch of lemon zest.

Then fill the batter into the prepared jars (they fill only about two-thirds since the dough comes up during baking) and bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees for about ten minutes. You can see when the cake is ready, ’cause it will form an even surface coming from the edge while still having a little pit of liquid chocolate in the middle. Then serve immediately (and don’t forget to sprinkle some hearts on top).

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So with the saying The way to someone’s heart is trough his stomach I can assure you’re on the right path with this cake. ;-)

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PS: Because I didn’t have enough jars, I made my little cakes in cupcake baking cups (that’s why the crust has these little grooves).

PPS: For a vegan version I would replace the eggs and egg yolks with maybe 50 ml oil and the butter with vegan butter, but I am not sure if that will work, since I didn’t test it yet.

PPS: So this cake is an adaptation from here.