Molten

This picture was supposed to be better. There was another, blurrier picture I took before this one, so I only posted the one. Honestly, I should have taken more pictures but I was in such a hurry to eat this Hot Chocolate Fudge Cake, this molten, gooey, chocolaty melted goodness that I hurriedly snapped some shots and ditched the camera in favor of a spoon.

Luckily the recipe in Cooking Light has a beautiful picture - but then, they don't use real food in those pictures do they?

This was my third attempt at baking the cake. It took me three attempts to even get a picture worthy cake because the cooking time on the recipe was far too long for molten, and my first two attempts resulted in very good but fully cooked cake. Such a disappointment when I wanted a messy melting spoonful in my mouth, not a dry cakey one. I've wanted some good molten chocolate cake ever since a long ago meal at M&S Grill in Minneapolis where I had one for dessert. So for my final attempt, I reduced the baking time drastically, from 21 minutes to 11 minutes.

This recipe actually has espresso in it, which means for the last three nights I've been restless and sleeping fitfully and am writing a long blog entry at 11:45pm. While I don't like coffee flavors much, espresso mixed with chocolate is wonderful. I'll write about chocolate espresso cookies one of these days. However, for the caffeine sensitive I would tone it down a bit in this recipe or get rid of it completely. When I lived with Kristen the dessert girl, she started popping chocolate covered espresso beans that someone gave her, and then had trouble sleeping for days until she made the connection. Espresso is strong stuff.

The original recipe was for ten servings. Now depending on how well you know me, you know that a)I don't have nine other people living with me, b) I can barely gather nine friends in the same zip code, and c) I am somewhat smaller than I have been in the past and intend to stay that way.

So making ten cakes was not option. I only have four ramekins anyway because my mom did not expect me to gather more than three friends in the same zip code when she bought them for me. So I divided the recipe by three and made three perfect servings (perfect = slightly large than Cooking Light deems appropriate).

Here it is then, the proportions for three servings. You can find the remaining instructions via the recipe link.

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 2/3 teaspoons instant espresso powder
• 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• Dash of salt
• 1 1/3 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup egg substitute
• 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 ounce bar dark (71% cocoa) chocolate (such as Valrhona Le Noir Amer), finely chopped
• 2/3 tablespoons powdered sugar