Molten cakes flow in several flavors

The U.S. Geological Survey lists some 1,500 active volcanoes in the world, and I've been fortunate enough to have had close encounters with three of them: Mount Rainier by plane, Mount Stromboli by ship and Kilauea on foot.

All were unforgettable experiences, but, honestly, my most memorable meet up with a volcano was years ago when I was served my first chocolate molten cake.

Molten cakes were novel then. Today they are almost hackneyed. And yet, there is something irresistible about a chocolate cake with a warm, runny center.

The molten cake was invented by accident, as have so many other sublime concoctions including puff pastry, the chocolate chip cookie and gooey butter cake, at least if you believe Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. He claims to have invented the cake back in 1987 when he prematurely pulled a chocolate sponge cake out of the oven and realized it was even better underdone, i.e., with a liquescent center.

However, not everyone is willing to credit Vongerichten for this discovery. The eminent chocolatier Jacques Torres says the cake had already been invented in France long before Vongerichten made claim to it. In fact, any number of French chefs maintain they had it in their repertoire well before anyone in this country had ever heard of it.

Not all molten cakes are filled with chocolate. This one, for example, erupts in salted caramel. (TOM HARTE)

These claims are plausible because the molten cake is sort of a cross between a flourless chocolate cake and a soufflé -- and what respectable French chef doesn't know how to fix either? In fact, dessert maven Maida Heatter, in one of her cookbooks, offers a recipe for a Chocolate Soufflé Cake that is not far from what we think of as a molten cake. It was already selling well at a gourmet shop in Manhattan a couple of years before her book was published in 1982.

Indeed, the real precursor of the molten cake is arguably the Tunnel of Fudge Cake, a chocolate cake with a gooey center that won a Texas housewife second place in the Pillsbury Bake-off of 1966. No one remembers who won first place and the cake catapulted the Bundt pan into culinary prominence.

But if there is a true father of the molten cake, it's probably three-star chef Michel Bras, who, in 1982, after two years of experimentation, perfected, and patented, his coulant au chocolat, coulant being French for fluid or flowing. Inspired by a cup of hot chocolate consumed after a day of skiing, he came up with the idea of inserting a chunk of frozen ganache into chocolate cake batter before baking. By the time the cake is finished, the center is only liquid. This is still one of the classic ways to make a molten cake, though most recipes today simply call for underbaking the cake batter. In a pinch, you can even discreetly poke a hole in an already baked cake and inject warm chocolate syrup.

However it's made, there's no denying that no matter how clichéd, a molten cake is always guaranteed to erupt with flavor.

Molten Cakes

Not all molten cakes are filled with chocolate. This one, for example, erupts in marshmallow fluff. (TOM HARTE)

The lava in a molten cake doesn't always have to be chocolate, as this recipe, adapted from Food & Wine magazine, demonstrates.

1 stick butter

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

5 tablespoons flour

6 ounces chopped dark chocolate

1/2 cup sugar

3 eggs

pinch of salt

4 squares (1/2-ounce each) semisweet chocolate

Combine one tablespoon cocoa and one tablespoon flour. Grease four 6-ounce ramekins and dust with cocoa mixture. Melt butter with chocolate and cool slightly. Beat sugar, eggs and salt at medium speed until thick and pale yellow. Fold in melted chocolate and then the remaining four tablespoons flour. Spoon two-thirds of batter into ramekins, top each with a square of chocolate and cover with remaining batter. Bake at 425 degrees for 16 minutes. Centers should be jiggly. Cool five minutes, carefully remove from ramekins and dust with powdered sugar.

Variations: For peanut butter molten cake, combine three tablespoons creamy peanut butter with one tablespoon flour and one tablespoon butter and substitute for chocolate squares; for caramel molten cake, replace each chocolate square with one heaping teaspoon cold caramel sauce and a sprinkling of sea salt; for marshmallow molten cake, replace each chocolate square with one tablespoon of marshmallow fluff.

Tom Harte's book, "Stirring Words," is available at local bookstores. A Harte Appetite airs Fridays 8:49 a.m. on KRCU, 90.9 FM. Contact Tom at semissourian.com or at the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, MO 63702-0699.