Chocolate Raspberry Pots de Creme Custard

Planning a Valentine’s Day dinner with your sweetheart? If so, these Chocolate Raspberry Pots de Creme are a perfect dessert for your meal.

Or you could make this recipe for two and eat them both yourself – I won’t tell. You can even double or triple the recipe and make the pots de creme for a party. But with their raspberry top and sinfully rich chocolate underneath, they’re tailor made for romance. 

Combining chocolate and raspberry is always a good idea. It is especially appropriate for a Valentine’s Day dish. After all, chocolate is an aphrodisiac, and red or pink is the color of love. Last Valentine’s Day, I put them together in a chocolate layered crepe cake topped with raspberry sauce. Before that, I topped chocolate mousse with fresh raspberries. A few years ago, my friend Barb of Creative Culinary layered chocolate and fresh raspberries in a pavlova. And now I’ve combined them into a rich single-serving dessert that is both elegant and easy. 

If you’re not familiar with chocolate pots de creme, you’re in for a treat. But first, let’s talk about what pots de creme are – and what they are not.

What’s the difference between a pot de creme and a mousse? Pot de creme is a cooked custard that contains heavy cream and egg yolks. Often, although not always, you cook a pot de creme in a water bath, sometimes called by it’s French name, a bain Marie. To cook using a water bath, you put the pot de creme ramekin in a larger pan which you fill with water approximately halfway up the side of the ramekin. The water steams, creating a moist atmosphere for baking the pot de creme. By contrast, a mousse is typically uncooked, with a lighter texture than a pot de creme. The mousse owes its light quality to whipping cream (either heavy or whipping cream), often with beaten egg whites. 

One side note. You can bake chocolate mousse ingredients, but without the cream, and you’ll end up with a roulade. That is, in essence, a fallen chocolate soufflé. After baking it in a jelly roll pan, you spread whipped cream on the thin, cake-like chocolate, and roll it up, making a cylinder with lovely swirl design inside.

How about the difference between a pot de creme and pudding?  The difference lies in their ingredients. A pot de creme relies on the eggs and baking to set it. By contrast, a pudding contains a thickener, usually flour, cornstarch, or a similar thickening agent. However, I like  to use avocado as the thickener in my chocolate pudding. 

As you can tell, the definitions for what makes a pot de creme, mousse, or pudding are somewhat elastic. As recipes develop with new ingredients or techniques, the definition of what needs to be in one or the other and the techniques for making them might change.  

In making these chocolate pots de creme, three other recipes inspired me – David Lebovitz’s (adapted from The Beer Pantry), the Cafe Tamayo version on Epicurious, and another one from The Kitchn. All follow the same basic, simple pattern: heat the cream, melt the chocolate in it, and let it cool a bit. Whisk the sugar and egg yolks together and gradually combine the two mixtures. The salt goes in with the cream in Lebovitz’s recipe and with the sugar and egg yolks in The Kitchn’s pots de creme. The Cafe Tamayo version does not include salt. All three bake the custards in a covered water bath or bain Marie.

My version adds raspberry whipped cream on top. I’m of two minds when it comes to timing on the whipped cream. You can add the whipped cream after the pots de creme cool down for one hour, but it stands up better (and looks better in photos) if you refrigerate the ramekins and then bring them back to room temperature. On the other hand, my personal preference is to eat the chocolate when it is warm. Either way, the chocolate/raspberry combination is amazing. 

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