Ahh, just the name sounds good. Let’s say it together. Ready, one, two, three: Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes. Doesn’t it sound good?
Well, these are not just good, but wonderful. A nice solid chocolate flavor, a light crust around the “lava,” and when warm, it pairs so nicely with ice cream. Anything this good is a bugbear to make, right? Nope. They are way too easy for something this good. We made these up for dessert on Saturday night and they took all of 30 minutes, including baking. Yes, that easy. This particular recipe, like many of the dessert recipes lately, comes from Dorie Greenspan‘s, Baking, From my Home to Yours. If you want to make great desserts, we highly recommend checking out this tome; we got it from our local library.
We’ll post something like the original recipe for six, although we did leave off the finely chopped chocolate. For us, we cut it back to make just two cakes; it wasn’t too much of a problem since we had another use for the leftover eggs.
Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 3 Tbs cocoa powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate coarsely chopped
- 1 stick 8 Tbs unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 large egg yolk room temperature
- 6 Tbs sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Butter and flour 6 cups of a muffin tin.
- Sift together salt, flour, and cocoa.
- Melt the chocolate and butter together. We used our microwave at 30% power and checked often.
- Whisk the eggs. Whisk until blended. Add the sugar, and whisk until that is thoroughly blended in, about 2 minutes.
- Use the whisk and gently stir in the cocoa/flour/salt mixture.
- Still using the whisk, stir in the chocolate/butter mixture.
- Divide the batter among the cups.
- Bake 13 minutes then cool 3 minutes. Once the 3 minutes are up, turn the cakes out on a piece of parchment paper, and, with a wide spatula, transfer to plates or bowls.
Ingredient discussion:
Chocolate: use the best. This recipe is all about chocolate; it’s the only flavor, for Pete’s sake, so do not skimp.
Procedure in detail:
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Butter and flour 6 cups of a muffin tin. We happen to have a couple of 6-ounce Pyrex baking cups that worked just perfectly. We buttered them up well, put in some flour, shook it all around, and tapped out the excess.
Sift together salt, flour, and cocoa. Cocoa is often a bit lumpy, so you really need to break out the sifter. If you don’t have one, and you really want to try this recipe, try whisking together the flour, salt, and cocoa. Whisk until it’s a uniform color and all the cocoa lumps are gone.
Melt the chocolate and butter together. The original recipe calls for putting them in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. We used our microwave at 30% power and checked often. According to Dorie, you don’t want the butter to separate. Once melted, stir the butter and chocolate together. Now, to the untrained eye, these may look like chocolate chips, and they are; however, they are definitely not Nestle — they are Callebaut, a really tasty Belgian chocolate.
Whisk the eggs. Whisk until blended. Add the sugar, and whisk until that is thoroughly blended in, about 2 minutes.
Stir in the dry ingredients. Use the whisk and gently stir in the cocoa/flour/salt mixture. Try to think Zen-like thoughts; it’ll keep you on an even keel and prevent you from whisking like a whirling dervish — assuming they whisk.
Stir in the chocolate. Still using the whisk, stir in the chocolate/butter mixture. It’ll be harder to think Zen-like thoughts because of the scent of the chocolate, but try. Soon you’ll get to have a taste of the batter. Very soon.
Divide the batter among the cups. If there is a smidge left in the bowl, just lick it up when no one is watching. We won’t tell.
Bake 13 minutes. Yep, lucky 13. After you have this dessert, you will never look at the number 13 the same way. When the 13 minutes are up, remove from the oven and…
…cool 3 minutes. Once the 3 minutes are up, turn the cakes out on a piece of parchment paper, and, with a wide spatula, transfer to plates or bowls.
Serve with vanilla ice cream. Only vanilla will do. Your favorite vanilla, in fact.
This recipe is a real keeper; it definitely deserves its well-earned 5 stars. After all, it was easy, and we’ll be using this recipe every time we want chocolate molten lava cakes.