Deep-Dark-Chocolate Pudding Cake

This is the second recipe I try from Joanne Chang’s Baking with Less Sugar (the first one was vanilla honey rice pudding). I’m a sucker for molten chocolate anything, so her low-sugar version intrigued me. The very first dessert of the sort that I made was Nigella Lawson’s Choco-Hoto-Pots, but in my recollection, those are very sweet, so I was looking to update the recipe a bit. Joanne Chang’s chocolate pudding cakes only contain the sugar already in the chocolate, and they are gluten-free to boot; I only adapted them to be lactose-free. We really liked these! I didn’t miss the sugar at all.

10 oz. (280 g.) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
½ cup vegan margarine
2 large eggs
2 egg yolks
½ cup coconut milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 °F. Butter six 4-oz ramekins.

Bring a saucepan filled partway with water to a very gentle simmer over medium-high heat. Place the chocolate and margarine in a medium metal or glass bowl. Place the bowl over (not touching) the barely simmering water in the saucepan and heat, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and margarine are completely melted and smooth.

In a large bowl, by hand with a whisk, whip the eggs and egg yolks. Whip in the coconut milk, salt and vanilla. Whisk in the chocolate mixture until thoroughly combined.

Divide batter evenly among the prepared ramekins and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 16 to 20 minutes, or until the outsides of the cakes start to set and feel firm to the touch and the insides are still wiggly and soft when you poke them in the center. (You can bake the cakes further, but if the center is no longer runny, they aren’t really pudding cakes.) Remove the cakes from the oven and let them sit for a few minutes to firm up.

Run a knife around the cakes and carefully invert onto serving plates. Serve immediately. (In my case, I took these pictures immediately, but since the Little Prince can’t eat anything too hot and since the Engineer likes his pudding cakes cold, I held off on serving them. Once these cakes are refrigerated, they become very dense because of all the chocolate they contain.)