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It’s just like the molten chocolate cakes from fine restaurants, except that you can make it at home in less than 20 minutes from beginning to end, thanks to The King’s Cupboard. |
| WHAT IT IS: Gourmet chocolate cake mixes, including a molten chocolate cake mix, a.k.a. molten lava chocolate cake or chocolate volcano cake. |
WHY IT’S DIFFERENT: The cake mixes are made from very fine chocolate—The King’s Cupboard specializes in gourmet chocolate products (read our review of their wonderful chocolate dessert sauces). |
| WHY WE LOVE IT: The Molten Chocolate Cakes turn us into talented pastry chefs; the rest of the line is better than we’d get from most bakeries. And, “we made it ourselves.” |
| WHERE TO BUY IT: KingsCupboard.com. |
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The King’s Cupboard Molten Chocolate Cake: Molten Magic
CAPSULE REPORT: When we have seen “Molten Chocolate Cake” or “Lava Cake” on a dessert menu, we haven’t been able to help ourselves: We order it, even though we should be practicing diversity, with a nod to the occasional Meyer lemon tart or green tea mousse. But when we see the words in print—or worse, catch a glimpse of those tempting little dark chocolate cakes, firm and buttery on the outside with a liquid surprise inside, being delivered to a nearby table—we have not been able to resist.
The other desserts on the menu have been getting their chance recently, thanks to the divine Molten Chocolate Cake mixes from The King’s Cupboard. We were skeptical at first, that something usually created by a skilled pastry chef would emerge from a box. But it does, and it’s just as good, even if you have no baking skill. You don’t even need ramekins—a muffin tin will do. The batter can be made in advance and baked all at once or refrigerated and made a few servings at a time, ready in 9 to 11 minutes for romantic nighttime nibbles. In Rich And Dreamy Molten Chocolate Cake or Kona Coffee Molten Chocolate Cake, you can find the magic boxes at your local specialty food store or can order them online. There are other delicious chocolate cake mixes that you can read about in the full review below. The King’s Cupboard also makes terrific chocolate and caramel dessert sauces, a prior Top Pick Of The Week that includes the best sugar-free chocolate sauce on the market. Read the full review below.
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More Great Cakes
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| The Cake Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum. This book has remained in hardcover since its publication in 1988, when it was named “Cookbook of the Year” by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. The recipes are classic and the knowledge is thorough: it’s a must-have. Click here for more information or to purchase. |
Maida Heatter’s Book Of Great Chocolate Desserts, by Maida Heatter. Another classic and a James Beard Award-winner, this book is newly available after being out-of- print for 10 years. Grab a copy and start baking up a chocolate storm. Try the Chocolate Pumpkin Cake before the season is over. Click here for more information or to purchase. |
Perfect Cakes, by Nick Malgieri. With stellar recipes and a teacher’s approach, Malgieri, a James Beard Award-winner, serves up everyday treats like Sour Cream Coffee Cake and Orange Poppy Seed Cake, and ends with showstoppers like Bûche de Noel and Passion-Fruit Bavarian Cream Cake. The photos tempt you to make them all. Click here for more information or to purchase. |
The King’s Cupboard Molten Chocolate Cake: Molten Magic
What could be more welcome to (a) someone in the midst of throwing a dinner party or (b) a chocoholic than the ability to whip up a glorious-looking, heavenly-tasting chocolate dessert with almost no effort at all? It’s this easy: You microwave butter and the cake mix for two minutes and let the mixture cool for five minutes. Then add four eggs and whisk until blended. You bake for 9 to 11 minutes, and then you’re ready to serve.
NOTE: The King’s Cupboard recommends using pasteurized eggs or egg substitute, because the centers of the cakes won’t be fully cooked and therefore pose a risk of salmonella, no matter how small. We used regular organic eggs (better than the regular supply, but not risk-free). We’re not here to advise you, but to make a decision for ourselves, we called our personal physician and were told that the odds of salmonella were very long. “Even should it happen,” he said, “you are not in a high risk group (young children, the elderly and those weakened by illness) to whom it would represent a danger.” We occasionally consume sunny-side up and soft-boiled eggs, as well as steak tartare—all of which are not recommended by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. We took the risk.
Available in Rich and Dreamy Molten Chocolate Cake or Kona Molten Chocolate Cake, one box makes eight 5-ounce ramekins. If you don’t have ramekins, Pyrex® custard cups or a muffin tin can be substituted. Standard cake pans can be used, but individual sizes are best for this dessert and ramekins have many uses: Now may be the time to invest!
Molten cakes need to be served immediately upon removal from the oven—the cake centers should be runny and “molten,” and like all cooked foods, they will continue to cook (and become less runny) after they leave the heat source. On the convenience side of the equation, the batter can be made up to one week in advance, and you don’t need to make it all at once. Bake two each evening, for yourself and your Significant Chocolate Other. If you like a daily treat, you can jog home from the gym and bake one a day.
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Your next decision is how to garnish: What’s your favorite taste pairing with chocolate cake and molten chocolate “sauce?”
The Rich and Dreamy Molten Chocolate Cake was
an NASFT award finalist following its debut in 2006.
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Your next decision is how to garnish:
- Simply, with powdered sugar and/or some whipped cream
- Fruitily, with strawberries, raspberries or blackberries; or a fan of mango slices for a tropical touch
- Indulgently, with crème anglaise or ice cream (Häagen-Dazs Coffee Ice Cream, Reed’s Ginger Ice Cream and Reed’s Green Tea Ginger Ice Cream were especially interesting matches)
- Glamorously, with candied orange peel, crystallized ginger or dark chocolate “twigs,” like these at the left from Mademoiselle de Margaux, made with Valrhona chocolate
Then, enjoy the cake—and accept the applause.
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Gourmet Cake Mixes
The King’s Cupboard introduced its Triple Chocolate Layer Cake Mix in 2005, and it became an NASFT award finalist at the Summer Fancy Food Show along with its companion Triple Chocolate Frosting (the “triple” chocolate refers to the cocoa and chocolate chunks in the cake, plus the chocolate of the frosting). It makes a lovely cake. For those who might question what you get from a $9.95 cake mix versus your $1.29 supermarket mix, you can see it in this comparison:
- The King’s Cupboard: Sugar, flour, cake flour, chocolate, cocoa, wheat starch, baking soda, espresso, salt.
- Major National Cake Mix Brand: Sugar, enriched bleached wheat flour, cocoa, dutched cocoa, vegetable shortening, dextrose, leavening (baking soda, dicalcium phosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate), artificial flavors, cellulose gum, modified cornstarch, polyglycerol, esters, propylene glycol monoesters, salt, wheat starch and xanthan gum.
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Triple Chocolate Layer Cake with Triple Chocolate
Frosting. You can also bake it in a Bundt pan or make
a sheet cake or cupcakes.
If you enjoy Bundts, take a look at some of the
exciting new Bundt pan shapes.
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Putting together the cake is as easy as making any other mix cake, but you may be inspired to greater decoration—for example, shaving some top-quality chocolate bars to decorate the top, as shown in the photo at the right (and which turns the dish into a “Quintuple Chocolate Layer Cake”).
 Say “Happy Birthday,” “Happy Anniversary” or
“Congratulations” with a do-it-yourself chocolate
birthday cake. The King’s Cupboard will ship it
gift-boxed. The recipient can bake a cake or
cupcakes to celebrate.
The review concludes below.
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We like to give the Triple Chocolate Layer Cake Mix and Frosting as a birthday gift: in essence, “bake your own birthday cake.” If it’s a local friend, we generally drop it off with a card and a box of birthday candles. But if it’s an out-of-town delivery, or we’re strapped for time, The King’s Cupboard is happy to oblige by shipping it directly in a handsome gift box, shown in the photo at the left (no candles, though).
Not resting on its laurels, but remaining true to its chocolate heritage, The King’s Cupboard has just introduced a delicious new cake: White Chocolate Hazelnut Cake Mix, made with premium white chocolate, Madagascar bourbon vanilla bean and hazelnut essence. The ingredients are very pricey; the cake is buttery, distinctly different and very delicious. To complement it, there’s a new Milk Chocolate Frosting with a full-force, top-quality milk chocolate flavor—equally as wonderful as if we took the best Guittard or Valrhona chocolate (The King’s Cupboard won’t say which chocolate they use in their products) and made it ourselves. We have never before found a ready-made frosting that we would consider eating: The quality of ingredients in The King’s Cupboard products equal those used by the most discriminating bakers.
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White Chocolate Hazelnut Cake was envisioned as a bundt cake. It can be served with one of the wonderful King’s Cupboard dessert sauces. But it also can be made into a layer cake, a sheet cake or cupcakes and served with the delicious Milk Chocolate Frosting. |
The frostings are handcrafted from the finest all-natural ingredients. Both the Milk Chocolate Frosting, above, and the dark Triple Chocolate Frosting can be used with puff pastry to make chocolate croissants. |
The expression “to take the cake” means “to carry off the prize,” which was originally...a cake! It comes from the “cake walk,” an African-American tradition born in the South, circa 1863, where couples would promenade around the prize cake and the couple judged to walk the most stylishly “took the cake.” In those days, crafting a fine cake was a laborious task and ingredients like sugar were costly: The prize was valuable indeed. Today, it’s easy to take the cake in the eyes of your family and friends. You can earn the applause with very little labor, thanks to The King’s Cupboard. You might even want to promenade around the table to show off the cake prior to serving.
—Karen Hochman
FORWARD THIS NIBBLE to people who love great chocolate desserts, and anyone who likes tricks for giving dinner parties with less effort.
THE KING’s CUPBOARD
Rich and Dreamy Molten Chocolate Cake, Kona Coffee Molten Chocolate Cake, Triple Chocolate Cake Mix, White Chocolate Hazelnut Cake Mix, Triple Chocolate Frosting, Milk Chocolate Frosting
- Molten Chocolate Cake Mix
One Box, 8 Servings
$9.95
- Triple Chocolate Cake Mix
$9.95
- White Chocolate Hazelnut Cake Mix
$11.95
- Frostings
17-Ounce Jar
$9.95
- Chocolate Cake and Frosting Gift Set
$21.95
There are additional gift sets on the website.
Purchase online at KingsCupboard.com
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Above, the Molten Chocolate Cake Mixes in two flavors.
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Read more about our favorite
desserts and related products:
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Some Prior Top Pick Of The Week Desserts:
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ABOUT THE NIBBLE. THE NIBBLE™, Great Food Finds™, is an online magazine about specialty foods and the gourmet life. It is the only consumer publication and website that focuses on reviewing the best specialty foods and beverages, in every category. The magazine also covers tabletop items, gourmet housewares, and other areas of interest to people who love fine food.
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Garnish with interesting decorations like these Valrhona chocolate twigs from 
