Mom I'm Hungry: Petits Pots de Crème au Chocolat

Petits Pots de Crème au Chocolat

Petits Pots de Crème au Chocolate is a classic French desert to die for. It's rich, decadent and will make an impression. It's basically a chocolate custard. What makes it special is that you don't use any kind of flour to thicken it and you use good quality dark chocolate and heavy cream. What makes it harden are the egg yolks. The end result is a velvety custard that will melt in your mouth.

There are many versions of this recipes. Some are more complicated and take longer to make. Other recipes claim to be easier as they do not use the oven, they just use the stove top. They say the water bath is a difficult step but it's not complicated at all as you will see below.

The consistency of this desert is incredibly velvety!!! Yummm!

Serve 4

Important : This recipe yields four servings of about 1/3 cup each so it's better to use small ramekins with the capacity of 4 to 4 3/4 ounces. Those ramekins are smaller than your everyday ramekins, which are usually about 7 oz.

The ideal is to use pots de crème pots, which come with lids, but this is not a must. Ramekins will work well. I never found pots de crème pots for sale in stores in the US.

I found pots de crème pots online in a few websites and decided to buy from The Kitchen Drawer because of the price. I later found out that they are a family owned small business and I was very happy to support them.

The pots de crème pots make this desert look so much more sophisticated.

pots de crème pots from The Kitchen Drawer

Here are my pots de crème from The Kitchen Drawer.
As I said before they have the best price and I want to add that the packaging was great and they arrived before the predicted delivery date.
I highly recommend this company.
They ship internationally.

What You Need:

1 cup heavy cream
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons sugar
2 oz dark chocolate, chopped in small pieces (I used Ghirardelli)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

and boiling water to make a bain marie (water bath).

What To Do:

Gather your ingredients.

Preheat oven to 325F and put water to boil in a pot or kettle. You will use the water for the water bath (bain marie) later.

Put the heavy cream in a saucepan over medium heat. The cream will warm up and bubbles will appear around the edges of the pan.

Turn off the heat and add the chocolate pieces.

Stir until the chocolate is melted and well blended.
If the chocolate does not fully dissolve turn the heat back on the lowest setting for a minute, and stir frequently until the chocolate melts.

Let it cool for 5 to 10 minutes, which is about the time it takes to do the next step of this recipe.

While the chocolate mix is cooling combine the egg yolks and sugar in a separate container or bowl. Pass the egg yolks through a sifter so the skin will not go in.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together for about 2 minutes.
Don't use a mixer and neither whisk it too intensely or you will add bubbles to the mixture, which will alter the consistency of the pots de crème.

The mixture will turn a paler yellow.

SLOWLY, pour the warm chocolate mixture in the container with the egg/sugar mix.
Keep whisking all the time.
Add the vanilla and whisk until well blended.

Divide the mixture in four ramekins or 'pot de creme pots'.

Cover each ramekin individually with foil paper.
If you are using 'pot de creme pots' put the lids on.

Put the ramekins in a deep baking pan, (it can even be a cake pan) and pour the hot water in it to create a bain marie.
I was using my pots de crème pots and they fit inside a baking dish (Pirex)
IMPORTANT: The water must be 1 inch deep or halfway up the side of the ramekins or pots de crème.

Leave them in the oven for about 15-20 minutes.
Don't exceed the 20 minutes or the pots de crème will get too hard. The perfect time for my oven is 18 minutes.
When you remove them from the oven the sides are set but the middle will tremble when shaken. Don't worry because it will harder after it's cold.

Place the ramekins on a rack to cool.
Don't discard the foil because you will need them again.
I use a cork pad for my pots de crème as you can see in the previous photo.
It takes about 1 1/2 hour for them to cool.

After they cool completely put the lids (foil) back again and place them in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours before serving. The ideal is to make these a day before you are planning to eat/serve them.

You can decorate with whipped cream and cocoa powder.
Actually this is waaay too much cream, it should be a dollop but (shame) I couldn't control myself.