Sweet recipes in a mini-casserole: Chocolate lava cake and a delicious mug cake!

Today we're bringing out the heavy artillery! Surely with a delicious and sinful chocolate coulant, or with a recipe as easy and quick as mug cakes, you'll be a hit day-to-day... Or when you have guests at home! These are two very easy but super impressive recipes that you can prepare in the beautiful mini-cocottes by Le Creuset.

You can see how to make them on our YouTube channel (here's the video).

Chocolate coulant

Ingredients (for 6 mini-cocottes)

• 120gr of chocolate for melting (Nestlé postres)
• 140gr of butter
• 3 eggs
• 70gr of flour
• 60gr of sugar

Preparation

1. Start by greasing the mini-cocottes with a little melted butter using a brush. Let it dry. Put flour into the mini-casserole to coat the entire interior and sides, and shake to remove the excess flour.

2. Melt the chocolate with the butter in a bain-marie or in the microwave.

3. Beat the eggs with the help of a mixer until they have at least tripled in volume (Sabayon).

4. Next, fold the melted chocolate into the sabayon using a spatula with enveloping movements until you get a homogeneous batter.

5. Add the sifted flour with the sugar little by little to the previous mixture.

6. Fill the mini cocottes ¾ full with the chocolate batter and let rest for 20 minutes in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

7. After 20 minutes, take the mini-cocottes out of the fridge and bake the chocolate coulants for about 10 minutes at 180ºC, then remove from the oven and serve.

You can accompany the coulant with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or simply dusted with powdered sugar.

Note: The coulant should be cooked on the outside and liquid inside.

Chocolate cream mug cake

A mug cake is a quick sponge cake that has become very popular lately. It simply consists of putting the ingredients into a small container or mug, and cooking it in the microwave in record time, in 1 to 3 minutes. Usually, as the name suggests, it's made in mugs, but we chose to make it in mini-cocottes because of their beautiful presentation.

Ingredients (for 4 mugs or mini-cocottes):

• 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons of chocolate spread (like Nutella or Nocilla)
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 2 tablespoons of milk
• 3 tablespoons of flour
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Preparation

1. Melt the butter in the microwave.

Now it's time to start adding all the ingredients, mix them, and put the mixture in the microwave. You can do this by distributing the proportional amount into each cup or mini-casserole, which is actually the usual way when you make a mug cake, and mixing it right there; or, as we did, add the ingredients to a bowl and mix everything, then fill each of the cups or mini-casseroles.

2. In a bowl, put the melted butter with the egg, beat well with a fork and add the sugar with the chocolate spread.

3. Add the flour, the baking powder and the cocoa powder. Mix again.

4. Finally, pour in the milk with the cream and the vanilla extract.

5. Stir well until you achieve a homogeneous and creamy texture.

6. Fill the mini-cocottes 3/4 full and cook them one at a time in the microwave at full power for one and a half minutes.

7. Remove the mug cake from the microwave and decorate with a little dusting of powdered sugar on top.

8. Let cool slightly and serve the delicious mug cake.

You can also prepare these mug cakes in their more common form, in cups or mugs.

I must confess that the coulant was spectacular, and these chocolate mug cakes were also addictive. I definitely invite you to try them at home. Enjoy!

Recipes made with Stéphane Poussardin, at his Atélier