Frances Bissell's warm chilli chocolate cake

• By Frances Bissell

If you make no other dishes in this small collection, do try this one, combining two of the greatest gifts of the Columbian Exchange, chocolate and chilli. In Europe, chocolate was first taken as a drink, mixed with a little chilli. The chocolate and chilli combination is still popular in Sicily. This cake makes a stunning finish to a special meal. A glass of well-chilled champagne accompanies the cake surprisingly well, far better than a sweet wine; the bubbles of carbon dioxide echo the tiny explosions of chilli in each mouthful of molten chocolate cake. Perhaps my recipe should be called chocolate volcano.

You will need:

Six ramekins, butter for greasing ramekins, two tablespoonfuls of cocoa, four whole eggs + two egg-whites, six level tablespoonfuls of caster sugar, 150g of best-quality dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids), another six small squares of the same chocolate, 50g of butter (at room temperature), one level tablespoonful of flour, sifted with half a teaspoonful of ground cayenne chilli.

Butter six ramekins or moulds, and sift cocoa into them to thinly coat the inside. In a large bowl, whisk the four eggs and all but a couple of teaspoonfuls of sugar, until the mixture is thick, pale and ribbon-y. In a separate bowl, melt the chocolate in the microwave, or bain-marie (in a bowl set over a pot of boiling water). Blend this with the butter, and fold in the flour and chilli. With a clean utensil, whisk the two egg-whites to firm peaks, gradually adding the last two teaspoonfuls of sugar. Spoon a little of the egg-and-sugar mixture into the chocolate mixture, to loosen it. Now carefully combine both these mixtures before folding in the whisked egg-white. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180C. Spoon the mixture into the ramekins, smooth the surface, bury a small square of chocolate in each one, and bake them for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove them from the oven, and you will notice that the mixture will sink a little and begin to shrink from the side of the ramekin. Run a thin knife-blade round each one, carefully turning it out onto a dessert plate. Dust the little cakes with icing-sugar and serve them with or without cream, ice cream or crème anglaise.