Two weeks ago, Mark and I took a cruise – our first – on the Carnival Valor. One of the things I was a little nervous about was the food. We don’t eat out often – even on vacation. Instead, we pack our hotel room with breakfast and lunch stuff and usually only eat out one meal a day. I wasn’t sure how I felt about having someone else prepare my food for an entire week.

I’m happy to say I was nervous over nothing. The food was fantastic and there was always enough of a selection to fit my mood.  And we absolutely fell in love with their signature dessert, the Warm Chocolate Melting Cake. We ordered it nearly every night.

The Warm Chocolate Melting Cake is like a lava cake – cooked on the outside but full of melty chocolatey goodness on the inside. As soon as we got home, I was craving another so I was really excited by how closely this resembled what we had on the ship. It really hit the spot and was a nice reminder of all the fun we had on board!

Carnival-Style Warm Chocolate Melting Cake
(Adapted from AllRecipes)

1/4 cup unsalted butter or unsalted margarine
2 ounces semisweet chocolate cut into bite-size chunks
1 egg
2 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon flour

In a double-boiler, melt together the butter and the chocolate until smooth and then remove from heat.

In a separate bowl, beat together egg, sugar and salt until sugar is dissolved.

Beat the egg mixture and melted chocolate together until smooth.

Beat in the flour until just combined.

Divide batter between two greased ramekins and bake at 450F degrees for 8-10 minutes or until the top puffs but the center is not set. For a less-melting cake, bake a few minutes longer.

This is fantastic with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!