Molten Lava Cake attempt #2

 Back in 2009, I wrote this post about a recipe flop! My oldest daughter had a friend over and we were going to make Molten Lava Cakes. I had seen them somewhere, I think a Pampered Chef show, and I knew I wanted to make them. Well, in a nutshell, I cooked them too long and no lava flowed. It was a sad day, except that the girls had fun no matter what. 

Valentines Day was approaching and I knew my hubby and I would be going out to eat and to a movie on another day so I asked the girls what they would like for dinner and dessert. Our youngest also had soccer practice and our oldest was asked at last minute to babysit (but she brought the girl up to our house for dinner and dessert). They said Sloppy Joes and Chocolate Lava Cakes. I was expecting them to say some nice pasta dish or something like that, but nope, sloppy Joes it was! I had to grocery shop that afternoon, my day was a bit rushed. I was finally home at 5:30 and got things unloaded and started...we weren't eating till 8:00.

Now, about those Lava Cakes. I was determined to get it right so I hit the internet. I looked up recipes, watched videos. Do you know HOW MANY recipes are out there for  lava cakes? AND each one is DIFFERENT! Let's just make it more nerve racking, wracking..however that is spelled. Seriously..look them up...you will be amazed. FINALLY I settled on this one from The blog Lululu At Home. She has lots of yummy looking recipes and cute posts written to her kids. 

Because I was rushed a bit with time I chose this recipe because it seemed to be fairly easy with very few steps. I borrowed some ramekins (and learned in the process how many people didn't know what a ramekin was) from a friend of mine and set out to make this recipe work. The result? SUCCESS!! I did it. I successfully made Molten Lava Cakes. The key? Watching VERY carefully as they bake to make sure they don't overcook. It doesn't take long and it's very easy to not pay attention.

Here is the recipe: It makes 6 cakes (I combined ideas from a few different blogs, so this is what I did)

Ingredients:

6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
2/3 c. unsalted butter
4 eggs
2/3 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. all purpose flour

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Butter six ramekins very well, cut out discs of parchment paper and place on the bottom of each ramekin. 

In a double boiler (or a bowl set over a pan of boiling water) melt the butter and chocolate. When melted, remove from heat and let cool for 15 minutes. 

Beat the eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl until thick and pale. Beat in flour. Then slowly add cooled chocolate to that mixture while mixing. I needed to stir it a bit more with my spatula. 

Evenly distribute batter amongst ramekins, about 3/4 full, maybe a bit less. 

Place ramekins on a cookie sheet and place in oven. NOW here is the tricky part because everyone's oven is different. You need to pay attention. I set my timer for 10 minutes and then checked every two minutes till they were done. I think mine took about 13 minutes. The key is that the edges are set and the top slightly set. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edge and invert on to plate. We served ours with vanilla ice cream. You could leave it in the ramekins but we wanted to see the lava flow out.

Please excuse the pictures. My oldest daughter had my camera so I was reduced to using my phone. I will certainly be making these again.

With Joy UNquenchable,