[4] French chef Michel Bras said that he invented the cake in 1981, after two years of experimentation, with his original inspiration being a family group warming themselves up after a skiing trip by drinking hot chocolate.

He recalled pulling a chocolate sponge cake from the oven before it was done and finding that the center was still runny, but warm with both a good taste and texture.

[3] He has been credited with popularizing the molten chocolate cake in the United States, where it became an almost de rigueur inclusion on high-end restaurant dessert menus in the 1990s.

Vongerichten's recipe is simpler: a chocolate cake batter made from normal flour, baked briefly in a very hot oven.

[3] The butter and chocolate are melted together, while the eggs are either whisked with the sugar to form a thick paste, producing a denser pastry, or separated, with the white whipped into a meringue to provide more lift and a lighter result.