Chocolate Bull's-Eye Cakes

These cakes may be small in size, but they're anything but small in flavor. Especially the chocolate filling--smooth and suave, it's a very grown-up pudding that makes you want to lick the bowl just like you did when you were a kid.
I liked these so much that I made them twice. I said I'd provide the dessert for a meeting at a friend's house. That meeting had to be rescheduled because of a blizzard (which are becoming all too familiar this year), and I made it again for the rescheduled date.

Like many of the other sponge cakes in the book, this one started with beurre noisette (now as familiar as blizzards but much more likable). This picture is just beurre before it gets to the noisette stage.

This recipe made me very glad I'd sprung for the Mary Ann pans. I bought them months ago and used them for Coffee Chiffonlets. Who knew they'd be so versatile?

We could probably all make sponge cakes in our sleep by now--except that it would be a little hard to fall asleep with the KitchenAid whirring at high speed for five minutes. Sometimes I think I should be wearing protective ear plugs at this stage. I'd rather be running my KitchenAid than a leaf blower. I hate leaf blowers.

Oddly, I didn't have any vanilla Cognac in my now well-stocked liquor cabinet. The first time I made the cakes, I just used a little extra vanilla in the syrup; the second time, I added vanilla and apricot brandy. For the delicious apricot glaze, I added just a teaspoon of apricot brandy to the strained apricot preserves.
Oh, by the way, remember the Chambord that we bought for a cake a while back? A friend of mine told me to mix it with Champagne for a festive cocktail, and that's exactly what I did on New Year's Eve. Very pretty and it tasted good too. Thanks, Suzanne!

The glaze not only added an unexpected touch of fruitiness to the cake; it also made it shiny and attractive. If you like fruit with your chocolate, you'll like this. You might still like it even if you don't because it's not at all overwhelming.

But my very favorite part of this cake is the non-cake cream filling. I was glad no one was in the kitchen with me when I made it the second time. I usually taste whatever is in the bowl, and I mean "taste"--a dainty, ladylike tip of a teaspoon full. I ate my usual taste, and then I licked the bowl clean. One of othe best chocolate experiences ever.  The chocolate glaze, which I drizzled (dribbled is more like it) on with a plastic bag was good too, but not as delicious as the filling.

The highest compliment I can pay these Bull's-Eye cakes is this: it is the only cake so far that I've made twice. And I'm already hankering for a third time.

TASTING PANEL

Susan: "Out of this world. The chocolate was so creamy. Not only delicious to eat but beautiful to look at."
Becky: "I feel like I'm eating something that I got at a fancy French patisserie."
Jim: "Love the combination of flavors. The cake is really nice and moist."
Rosemary: "It's delicious, and the cake is so moist. The chocolate filling is wonderful."