molten chocolate lava cakes.

I’ve been impressing dinner guests with these little cakes for years. They’re really impressive looking and relatively easy to make. The lava cakes are warm, gooey, and not overly sweet which makes them great topped with vanilla ice cream, homemade whipped cream, and fresh strawberries. These are the perfect dessert to make if you live in a small space. They can be made in only one bowl and are deceptively easy to make. Just pop them in the oven while you’re eating your dinner and pull them out just in time for dessert!

Ingredients for 4 servings:

4 oz Semi-sweet Baking Chocolate (Bakers brand are divided into 1oz. squares)
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened (save your wrapper)
1 cup powdered/confectioners Sugar
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
6 tablespoons flour 

For whipped cream:
2 cups heavy whipping cream

2 Tablespoons granulated Sugar 

 
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease 4 small ramekins or custard cups by wiping them with the wrapper from the butter. I just learned this trick form Ina Garten, it works great and keeps your hands clean and is really efficient. (you can also spray with Pam or just use a piece of wax paper with butter or crisco on it)

Make sure you get the corners you'll have to flip these out eventually!

Chop up your butter and chocolate and place it in a medium sized microwave safe bowl.

Microwave on high for about 1 minute. 

The butter should be melted but the chocolate should not. Whisk until chocolate is also melted. (tip: If you microwave until the chocolate is also melted you risk burning the chocolate. The heat from the melted butter will be sufficient to melt the chocolate, trust me.) 

You should end up with a smooth, shiny mixture.

Stir in confectioners sugar until well blended.

Its not going to look quite right but this is what you should get, a dry-ish thick mixture. 

Whisk in eggs and egg yolks.  

Stir in flour.

It should have a loose brownie batter consistency. 

Divide between cups until 2/3 full. Then place on cookie sheet. I put foil or parchment underneath incase of overflow.

The original recipe calls for custard cups which are bigger so I usually end up with enough batter for 5 ramekins worth ( This time I was wasteful because my brother keeps stealing mine to feed his cat. gross right?)

Bake 13-14 minutes until sides are firm and center is soft. I pop them just as everyone sits down for dinner. Let stand 1 minute then invert them onto a plate. Place the ramekin right side up then placing a plate on top of it and flip. You can forgo this step and serve them in the ramekins if you prefer. 

I over filled mine which made flipping difficult. It also made it look as if they weren't quite done because I could see the gooey center. Don't be fooled, there should be a gooey center and if you keep baking like I did there will be no lava in your chocolate lava cake. sad face.

For homemade whipped cream combine sugar and heavy cream and whip until stiff it forms stiff peaks. I chill my bowl and whisk attachment before adding the very cold whipping cream for better faster stiff peak forming. It's so easy there's no excuse for store bought whipped cream.

 I over baked this one a bit, otherwise it would have been more attractive.

Surprise! Gooey center. If it's not quite as liquid-y don't be alarmed, this one was an over achiever. 

Top with whipped cream. They’re also great with ice cream and strawberries. The acid in the fruit cuts the richness of the cake and the ice cream adds some sweetness. Everyone will ooo and ahhh at your professional looking deserts. They'll never know you used a microwave.

Original recipe via brandelle on tasty kitchen where you can convert servings to as few or many as you like.

Vanilla Cake Confessions: Attempt 1.

So as I mentioned earlier I am on a bit of a quest for the perfect white or yellow cake recipe. I am sad to say there was no breakthrough last week when I used this recipe from sweetapolita. sad face. The cake itself was dense and not especially tasty. It's highly likely that I over folded the egg whites but even so the cake just had no taste and was just as biscuit-ish as the other recipes I've tried. The cake was not prefect but it was not as much of a disappointment as the frosting. I suppose I should have read the recipe ahead of time but in any case I was not expecting a whip cream like frosting and 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract is never a good idea, never ever. It was grainy after almost 15 minutes of mixing and the whipping cream left that gross coating on the inside of my mouth and all I could taste was vanilla extract. total failure. I'm thinking of trying some kind of swiss meringue buttercream next time and maybe a yellow cake. 


The cake did not turn out spectacularly but I did have some fun with some fondant decoration. I also learned I do not have a future in food photography so bear with me.

fondant daisy-ish flowers made with wilton cutters, next time I think I'll try making one that looks more like a daisy.

I tried out my butterfly cutters too, even though I didn't really have a plan for them.

I'm a bit of a sucker for pink icing and originally planed on leaving some out to make yellow dots in the center of the daisies but I was in a rush to finish before my date and completely forgot.

The design for the top looked better on my cutting board but I really love the swag motif.

more to come!

Happy Birthday Lilly Grace!

My niece just turned 4 and I didn't get to make her cake this year. sad face. It reminded me to share her 2nd birthday cake with you. I made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, chocolate espresso filling, and chocolate ganache using Ina Garten's recipe (my favorite chocolate cake recipe, it comes out perfectly every time). In hindsight it probably wasn't most peoples idea of a toddler's birthday cake but she was only allowed to have a few bites anyway (which she loved) and all of the other attendees were adults. Now when I make this cake I leave out the espresso frosting/filling that Ina used because everyone found it to be a bit strong even if it was only between the layers rather than all over the cake, but the recipe works great sans the espresso powder.

this is me again, makeup free and exhausted from trying to balance baking this cake for the first time and babysitting a very curious toddler.

 

I try to bake with her every time she comes to our house. She even has her own apron.

 I think whipped cream might be her favorite thing to make.especially since I got one of the clear glass bowls for my kitchen aid mixer.

Fondant

When I was a freshman (I feel so old saying that) I made this cake for my sister in law and covered it in fondant. It was really fun but fondant is expensive and tastes terrible so I haven't covered any cakes since. Maybe I'll try to make my own marshmallow fondant, I keep seeing it topping cupcakes and cookies. It sounds like it would taste better and be more cost effective.

(that's me nearly 4 years ago, gosh I was so blonde then, I kinda miss it)

... but I have made decorations a few times. These cupcakes were for a BamaGram sale (well, also for my sister- in-law but it was a paid gig). This was after I drove them all the way downtown through university traffic so they are a bit melted but I thought they turned out pretty well.