I Made Meghan Markle's 5-Ingredient Dessert—It's Heaven

In my house, we couldn’t care less about what’s trendy when it comes to desserts. In fact, it’s all the more fun to introduce my kids to the classics. While molten chocolate cakes may have had their heyday in the '90s, they’re new and exciting to my three and five-year-old girls.

Plus, these have a princess’s (well, OK, duchess if we’re being technical) pedigree, giving them even more appeal. They were pumped to try a royal chocolate treat!

This recipe comes from the archives of Meghan Markle's—er, Sussex’s—lifestyle blog. On her new Netflix show, she talks about how she started sharing recipes when she wrote her lifestyle blog The TIG. She shared these “Chocolate Petite Gateaux” (a.k.a. molten chocolate cakes) there back in 2015.

Single-serving sweet treats are my favorite kind of dessert to make. They’re usually fast to put together, are often served right in the baking dish, and don’t make too many leftovers for my family of four.

Meghan’s recipe is scaled to make two to three cakes, but there is plenty of batter for four smaller ramekins. I’d use four-ounce ramekins if I were going that route, but this time, I brought out my cutesy little eight-ounce set, designed to look like itty bitty Dutch ovens. They really added to the fun presentation.

How To Make Meghan Markle's Molten Chocolate Cakes

Though the recipe has a fancy French name, these gâteaux are très simple to prepare. You only need five ingredients: chocolate, sugar, butter, flour, and eggs (though I added a pinch of salt to perk up the flavors a bit).

You melt the butter and chocolate together, beat the eggs and sugar ‘til light and fluffy, fold the mixtures together (along with the flour), and bake the cakes for just six to eight minutes in a very hot oven.

I diverged from Meghan’s recipe a little bit, using bittersweet chocolate chips instead of semisweet ones. I think this caused my batter to be a little bit less runny, so my molten centers were firmer and fudgier, like a gooey, undercooked brownie. Still delicious!

My Tips for Making Meghan Markle's Molten Chocolate Cakes

The directions for Meghan’s recipe are written with pretty minimal language. She doesn’t say how to melt the butter and chocolate—I used a small saucepan on the stove over low heat, stirring often. She also says to “fold the flour and chocolate,” which I took to mean, fold them into the beaten eggs and sugar.

She doesn’t specify whether the ramekins should be greased, so I did just to be on the safe side. Oh, and there’s a little typo in the ingredients list—it calls for 2 eggs and “2 egg yolk,” but she clearly means one egg yolk, based on the picture of the ingredients and the language used in the instructions. Experienced bakers won’t have any trouble with the recipe, but a beginner might need some clarification.

Regardless, the results of the recipe are very, very delicious. These cakes are rich—so much chocolate!—and they definitely benefit from being served with the recommended scoop of ice cream. It’s like having a brownie and a fudge sundae all in one. After my five-year-old finished nearly all of her cake, I polished off the last few bites with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Heaven.