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Chocolate Mini Cakes With Strawberry Jam

It is such a pleasure sauntering around farmers' markets in the summer months and spotting blueberries, raspberries, apricots, peaches, cherries, blackberries, black and red currants or strawberries at the farmers' stalls. I love looking at all the colorful fruits and vegetables that the vendors offer and I usually end up buying more vegetables and in particular fruits that I intended. On my last farmers' market visit I bought 4 kilos of very sweet and juicy strawberries - which were the best strawberries of this season that I had so far - along with a big bag of cherries, peaches and blueberries. As much as I love eating fruits it was impossible to consume all the fruits that I purchased. So I made a few jars of strawberry and peach jam and I made countless of little tartlets that I filled with a classic crème pâtissière and topped with strawberries. But I needed a break from fruit tartlets and I created delicious little chocolate cakes that I filled with my strawberry jam that I made myself.
I was very pleased with the result of the cake. It is a very moist chocolate cake - at the same time the cake batter is very easy to prepare - and the strawberry jam compliments the chocolate flavor very well. Of course feel free to use any other jam that you like. Apricot jam is a classic and used in the Sachertorte cake but I do recommend giving strawberry jam a try. It is delicious. The chocolate glazing makes the cakes look extra fancy. To me it looks like big pralines; I think it is beautiful; I like it a lot. 
Enjoy the summer time my dear readers. Enjoy all the delicious fruits that summer has to offer. And of course enjoy these delicious chocolate cakes. 
Makes 8-10 chocolate cakes

INGREDIENTS

    • 175 g  / 3/4 cup and 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
    • 100 g / 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, room-temperature
    • 2 eggs, medium size
    • 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    • 200 g / 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
    • 1 teaspoon baking powder
    • 100 g / 1/3 cup and 1 tablespoon yogurt, full fat
    • 50 ml / 1/4 cup milk, full fat
    • 15 g / 2 tablespoons unsweetened cacao powder
    • 200 g dark couverture chocolate, roughly chopped
    • 1 1/2 tablespoons coconut oil
  • Liqueur or orange juice
  • Strawberry jam

DIRECTIONS

  • Preheat the oven to 175 °C / 350 °F.
  • Grease and flour a muffin tin. 
  • Beat sugar and butter until creamy. Add vanilla sugar or extract and eggs and beat until smooth and creamy. 
  • Mix flour, baking powder and cacao powder in a separate bowl. Sift the flour mixture over the butter-egg mixture, add yogurt and milk and stir until all ingredients are well combined. Do not overmix the batter. 
  • Fill cake batter 2/3 into the muffin tin. 
  • Bake chocolate cakes for 20 to 25 minutes. Let cakes cool completely, unmold the cakes. 
  • Cut cakes in half (if your cakes have little "bumps", slice off the "bump"). Soak cake halves with liqueur or juice. 
  • Spread strawberry jam on the top halves and place the bottom half on top of the jam filling. 
  • Melt chocolate with coconut oil in a double boiler. 
  • Pour the melted chocolate over the cakes. I set the cakes on a wire rack and place a plate under the wire rack; then I pour the melted chocolate over the cakes. Let chocolate glaze set.