Chocolate lava cake

Mmm, chocolate! No pics here, but maybe I’ll update this later with some. Sizes and temps in imperial measures because they balance out nicely with my cooking stuff.

Ingredients

6 ounces (170g) high-quality dark (60% or higher),  chocolate*
1 stick/113g unsalted butter
31g all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (60g) sugar (superfine is good, confectioner’s is OK, granulated is fine)
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
splash of vanilla (or chambord, or frangelico, or kahlua, or bailey’s, or a nice glenfiddich)

Directions

Heat an oven to 425°F. Grease (OK, fine, butter, you know you will) 4 six-ounce ramekins and dust the insides with cocoa. If you want you can drop little parchment paper disks on the bottoms but that’s not obligatory. Alternately you can butter/cocoa 6 muffin tins if you don’t have ramekins. 

Melt butter and chocolate in a microwave. (Chop both into bits first) You want them melty but not really hot. (Hot isn’t necessary)

In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, and salt together. Yes there’s more sugar than flour, this is decadent, be happy.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, egg yolks, and flavor liquid together.

Make sure the butter/chocolate mix is not too hot to touch. After you lick your finger from the checking, dump in the eggs and whisk together. Then dump in the dry ingredients and whisk a bit.

Pour the results into your ramekins or muffin tins. Bake for 12-14 minutes (8-10 for muffin tins) until the sides seem solid and the center still gooey.

Let cool for a minute or so, then decant to plates. (Or leave it in the ramekin if you want, that’s fine) Dust with cocoa and powdered sugar, and if you’re so inclined (which you are, let’s be honest) drizzle on some chocolate ganache. (equal parts dark chocolate and cream by weight, though you can replace some of the cream with vanilla or chambord, or bailey’s, or frangelico, or glenfiddich — up to 100% in the case of bailey’s/chambord/glenfiddich though toss in a bit of butter for shiny creaminess)

Eat while warm!

Note that if you underbake it you still have lovely gooey chocolate pudding (yay!) and if you overtake a bit you have a nice chocolate cake. So, y’know, no worries there, toss on some vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of ganache and claim it was what you intended. Nobody’ll know better and they’ll have chocolate pudding/cake.

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