Quick desserts for one

Molten Chocolate Cake and Fruit Crisp recipes for one, because sometimes the dried fruit in your cupboard just doesn't hit the sweet spot

Left, fruit crisp with cinnamon-oat topping; right, molten chocolate cake for one

I was eating dinner solo last week, and REALLY wanted dessert. I have a little chocolate in the cupboard for times like this, or I’ll have a date or some other dried fruit that I can hear my mother suggesting. But there are those times when you just need a proper dessert and it needs to be ready fast.

I took a poll to see if others wanted a quick dessert for 1-2 people, and over 80 Substackers replied within hours with an enthusiastic YES!; I knew I couldn’t be the only one.

I came up with two: a fruit crisp and a classic molten chocolate cake.

Of course, you could bake fruit and top it with granola and call it a day, but I wanted something a little more pie-like, with a buttery, flavorful topping but no rolling pins involved. This crisp topping is patted into a thin round and baked like a cookie, and you break it up over the top of cooked peaches or berries.

I baked my fruit dessert in a small, 4-cup Pyrex that comes with a lid, which makes it really easy to store leftovers. For the Molten Chocolate Cake, there’s these 6-ounce glass custard cups that also are great for small leftovers because they come with lids, or these traditional ceramic 8-ounce ramekins.

The chocolate dessert is based on the molten or lava cakes that were popularized in the ‘80s by French chefs (both Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Michel Bras lay claim to its invention; controversy!) and took over practically every menu in the U.S. from white-table cloth restaurants to chains. It’s a “self-saucing” cake that bakes up in less than 10 minutes, is put together very quickly and is chocolate cake perfection. If you like chocolate desserts, I GUARANTEEE you’ll love it.

A note on the flour for the molten chocolate cakes: I use potato starch in this recipe because it gelatinizes at a slightly lower temperature than GF blends which can have a slight “floury” flavor because the center is liquid. You could also use arrowroot starch or tapioca starch (not a deal breaker if you don’t have any of the suggested starches, though).

It’s kind of fun from time to time baking this way; just pull out the tablespoons and a few good ingredients and voila, dessert is served just for you.