Time to pop your 'bouchon'

As I made my last-minute way through the crowd of Christmas Eve shoppers at Williams-Sonoma, my eyes landed on a kitchen tool that I knew would be my gift to myself: a bouchon mold. Bouchons are bite-size, brownielike chocolate cakes (bouchon is French for "cork"), and they happen to be the namesake goodie for superchef Thomas Keller's Bouchon and Bouchon Bakery restaurants.
Along with a silicon mold that produces a dozen 1½-inch tall bouchons, the store also carries a slickly packaged, Keller-made bouchon mix. It's ludicrously expensive, amounting to $1 per bouchon, a tally that doesn't take into account the added cost of butter and eggs. Instead, I'd recommend the recipe that Williams-Sonoma thoughtfully includes on its bouchon mold package (find it, along with Keller's from-scratch formula, at startribune.com/taste/bouchon).
I found it easier to make than Keller's fussy mix, and, depending upon the ingredients — even matching the Guittard, Callebaut and Nielsen-Massey name brands Keller uses — the results are far moister and intensely fudgy, for what is probably less than half the cost. As for the French-made, heat-resistant bouchon mold, two enthustiastic thumbs up.
Bouchon mold $29.95, Bouchon Bakery Chocolate Bouchon Mix $18, available at Williams-Sonoma, many locations and at williams-sonoma.com.