Mini Mudcakes and a Touch of Kitchen Psychology

Being a single cook is sometimes challenging. Everything comes in family size, and even one mudcake can be slightly too big sometimes. I like Frödinge mudcake (in Finnish and Swedish). You can buy it straight to the freezer, cut a wedge when you want and eat it one piece at a time. But it feels so obligating. There you have it, an opened cake in the freezer, it's so hard to resist at times. Surely it will get that horrible freezer taste if it's there too long...

So how about mini mudcakes? Do they rest better in the freezer? After all, when you eat a small cake from start to finish, there's no unfinished cakes whispering to you from the freezer. Let's make a batch of them and watch the effect. Actually, it's a kitchen psychology experiment! Does cake size affect the speed of demolishing a certain weight of mudcake? Or the fact that it's already opened? Oh well, I'll find out soon enough :D In addition to kitchen psychology testing material, mini mudcakes are good for parties (serve with a selection of jams), picnics (you can munch it from a napkin, no spoon needed) and serving an elegant but not too big dessert to a fine meal.

Here's one instruction to mini mudcakes, basically the difference to a regular one is using small cake forms or a muffin tray. Instead of rum you can use raspberry, apricot or cherry liquor, or maybe whiskey, or some strongish juice. Baking time will depend on the size of your cake forms and oven. My muffin tray pits are 5cm wide at the bottom, and baking time is approx. 15 mins in lower middle part of  the oven. I prefer to have mudcake with raspberry jam and cream, apricot jam is a good choice too. With a nice glass of madeira, it's absolutely bliss.

• 70gr dark chocolate (60-70% cacao)
• 100gr butter
• 1 dl coffee
• 1,25 dl sugar
• 0,3 dl rum
• 1 egg
• 1,5 dl wheat flour
• 3 tsp unsweetened, milk free, pure cocoa powder 
• 0,5 tl baking powder

1. Butter the forms if you are using metal cake forms.

2. Measure butter, chocolate, sugar and coffee in a kettle and mix and let melt on a very low heat (on a scale to 1-6, I use 1). Do not allow to boil or bubble, as the chocolate will get bitter if heated too much.







3. Pour the chocolate mix in a bowl. Whisk egg in a separate bowl. Whisk the egg then into the chocolate mix.








4. Mix cocoa powder, flour and baking powder. Put a sieve over the chocolate bowl and mix the dry stuffs in through sieve. Mix until even.








5. Pour the dough in forms and bake in 170C for 15-20 minutes depending on your form size.








6. Take cakes out of the oven. Let cool properly as they are soft from the inside. If you are using a muffin tray, put the tray upside down on a baking parchment and a cold wet (squeeze excess water out) towel on the bottom side, it helps with cooling and loosening the cakes.

7. Serve with cream and jam!