Whenever Miss Hoover is in a baking mood it usually means that she is hankering after chocolate. And so the other day when she suggested we don on our aprons and have a baking afternoon she insisted we make 'Chocolate Puddles'.

These 'Chocolate Puddles' are basically individual flourless chocolate cakes and the recipe below makes a dozen delicious dense, moist cakes. We often finish them off with a rather generous blob of ganache. Sometimes I add Frangelico to the ganache to give a hint of hazelnut and other times I add Grand-marnier to get that choc-orange effect. Often when we have a party or family get together I just double the recipe and end up with twenty four of these gorgeously decadent things.



Ms. Gourmet's Chocolate Puddles

We often dust our 'Chocolate Puddles' with a light sprinkling of icing sugar and serve with some berries that have been drizzled with Vincotto. Alternatively you could serve them with a generous blob of ganache.


Ingredients

300g dark bitter chocolate

125g butter

3 organic eggs

½ cup of castor sugar

1¼ cups of almond meal

¼ cup of water

 
Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6

2. Combine eggs and sugar in a bowl and beat until light and creamy about 3 minutes by hand (or 30 seconds in the Magi Mix as we like to do it). Add the almond meal and water and stir until well combined.

3. Combine chocolate and butter together in a bowl and place bowl on top of a saucepan of boiling water being, careful not to get any water into the gorgeous mixture as the chocolate will seize. Once creamy, stir the melted chocolate and butter into the egg, sugar and almond meal mixture.

4. Divide mixture evenly into 12 muffin cake cases that you previously lined your muffin tray with and bake for 30 minutes. When done remove from the oven and allow to cool.

5. Dust 'Chocolate Puddles' with a light sprinkling of icing sugar before serving or top them with a generous blob of ganache.



 
Ganache

Ganache is typically made by heating cream in a saucepan and then pouring it directly over the chopped chocolate. You then stir the mixture until smooth. I used 200g of dark chocolate and 200g of thick cream to make enough ganache for a dozen Chocolate Puddles. If you need to adjust the consistency just add more cream.