Molten Center Chocolate Cakes

This is a wonderful make-ahead dessert. As long as everything is ready in advance, you can make the cake batter and fill the molds hours ahead of time—just bake them immediately before you intend to serve them. Most people agree that these were invented by the 3-star French chef Michel Bras. But Bras’s version calls for the cake batter to have a frozen chocolate truffle baked in the center, unlike these cakes, where the batter itself provides the flow of warm, semiliquid chocolate. These ar