Chocolate Lava Cake

Spent my afternoon doing something different today- baking! You got it. It's not something that I do often but I decided it's time to get in touch with my domesticated self, especially since it's the holiday season now. Haha :) A friend introduced me to this delicious-looking and more importantly, simple, Chocolate Lava Cake recipe from Noobcook and I decided to try my hand at it- for the second time. The insructions are easy enough to follow but I think the tricky part lies in catching hold of the right timing while baking the cakes. Recipe stated to leave the cakes in the oven for about 10 minutes, my friend took only 8 minutes. I, on the other hand, pop it into the oven for only 6 minutes during my first attempt and it turned out to be a little too long, hence no chocolate lava oozing out :( This time round, I tried for about four and a half minutes and it was just nice :) Could still cut it to 4 minutes though. I think the reason is because I used those chicken pot pie metal cups instead of ramekins and heat travels faster.


Fresh out from the oven!

 

Served with 2 scoops of vanilla ice-cream at the side.



Sinfully delicious :)



Choloate Lava Cake Recipe

Ingredients
(makes three 6-oz ramekin cakes)
- 100g dark chocolate (example, Cadbury Old Gold 70% cocoa), cut to small cubes
- 100g unsalted butter, cut to small cubes
- 2 eggs
- 50g caster sugar
- 20g self-raising flour

To decorate (optional)
- icing sugar and small sieve
- berries
- vanilla ice cream

Additional tools needed
- spatula
- electric whisk (hand-held)
- oven safe ramekins (6-8 oz)

Directions
1. Melt dark chocolate and butter using either the microwave (see cooking note 3), a hot water bath or a double boiler (note: do not use direct stove heat or the ingredients will burn).
2. In a large bowl, use an electric whisk (you can whisk by hand too but it’s more tedious) to beat the eggs and sugar till the mixture turns pale and frothy. This will take a few minutes.
3. Pour melted chocolate/butter you prepared in step 1, into the egg mixture prepared in step 2. Stir in the flour. Use a spatula to mix everything evenly.
4. Grease your ramekins with some melted butter (so that the cake will come off cleanly when it is baked). Fill the ramekin almost 3/4 full with the chocolate mixture and bake in a preheated oven of 180C (356F) for about 10 minutes. Mine took exactly 11 minutes. The cake is deliberately slightly undercooked so as to achieve its ideal consistency which is runny in the middle (hence the name fondant/molten/chocolate lava) but if you over-bake it, you will get a super moist chocolate cake which is yummy too.
5. When it is baked, remove ramekin from oven and let cool for 1-2 minutes. Use a spoon to gently loosen the edges. Carefully invert the cake onto serving plate.
6. Serving suggestion: Use a sieve to dust icing sugar over the cake. Serve a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some berries at the side.