Molten Choco - Lava Cake

If there is one dessert that I cannot resist, its hot choco-lava cake with a scoop of ice cream. It can lift my mood any time. I have been making choco lava cake for more than 2 years now, infact before getting married it was the only dessert i used to ever make. I have 3 versions of its recipes with little changes here and there with me but i like this one the best. You can combine it with fruits like strawberries too if u dont wanna use ice cream.

Preparation time: 20 mins + another 20 to chill in refrigerator
Baking time: 12 mins
Makes 8 medium sized cakes

Ingredients:

• 200 g dark semisweet chocolate
• 200 g butter plue little extra for greasing the moulds
• 200 g golden castor sugar or brown castor sugar
• 4 eggs
• 4 egg yolks
• 200 g maida or all purpose flour
• 50 g cocoa powder for dusting moulds
• Chocolate or caramel sauce for garnishing

Grease 9 muffin moulds or ramekins with butter and dust with cocoa powder. I use food grade silicon moulds for this purpose as it is so easy to remove the cake from them. Set aside. Melt butter and chocolate together in a double boiler and stir until smooth. Leave it to cool for 10 minutes.

In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and yolks together with sugar until pale and thick. Sift flour into the eggs and beat together. Pour the chocolate mix into the cake mix in thirds, beating well between each addition.

Equally divide the batter into the prepared moulds. Chill them for atleast 20 minutes. You can even freeze the moulds for later use.

Preheat the oven to 200 degree C. Place the  moulds in a baking tray and bake for 10 – 12 minutes or just till the top seems little firm but centre is still a little wobbly. Always bake an extra mould than required to check the doneness. The centre has to be a gooey liquid.

Remove from the oven and let it sit for a minute before removing the cake from the mould. Serve with sauce and ice cream of your choice. Enjoy!!!

Chocolate - Strawberry Cake

Preparation time: 1 hour

Baking time: 45 minutes

Serves 7 to 8

Ingredients:

• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup _{+ 1 tbsp} all purpose flour or maida
• ½ cup castor sugar
• ½ cup Demerara sugar(brown)
• ½ cup softened unsalted butter
• ½ cup dark unsweetened chocolate broken into pieces
• 2 tbsp brewed coffee
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• ½ cup chopped walnuts
• 2 tbsp tutty-fruity

For icing the cake

• 1 cup ready-made vanilla icing
• 1 packet fresh strawberries
• 3 tbsp dark chocolate flakes or grated

Grease and flour a round 8” baking tin. Preheat the oven a 180 degree Celsius.

Melt chocolate along with coffee over double boiler (Boil water in a wide pan, place chocolate and coffee in a smaller vessel and keep it in the boiling water, stirring, till chocolate melts). Let it cool to room temperature.

Beat butter to a smooth paste in a mixing bowl. Beat both the sugars into the butter in 3-4 portions till sugar is incorporated well. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together.

Fold the chocolate into butter-sugar mixture. Now beat 1/4^th of the sifted flour into the mixture. Beat for 2-3 minutes. Now add one egg and beat again for 2 minutes. Repeat this process starting and ending with flour until all eggs and flour are incorporated into the mixture.

Now beat in the vanilla essence. Fold in the walnuts and tutty-fruity, leaving a few to sprinkle on top.

Pour the mixture into the baking tin and sprinkle the rest of the nuts on the top. Bake at 180 degree Celsius for 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Remove the cake from the mould and let it cool down. Meanwhile, chop 4-5 strawberries finely and rest into slices. Also prepare the icing as per instructions. Mine just needed to be whipped with little milk to make it easy to spread. You can also prepare icing at home with heavy cream, castor sugar and vanilla essence. The trick is to stop beating at the right point, right before it curdles.

Now carefully slice the cake into two layers. If the cake will be warm it will fall apart so let it cool down. Mix the chopped strawberries into 3 tbsp of icing and spread it on the lower layer. You can even sprinkle 2-3 tbsps of orange juice on the lower layer to make it more moist. Place the top layer carefully on top. Now spread rest of the icing on top and sides. No part of the cake should be visible. Take help of a spread knife for this purpose.

Now cover the top with grated chocolate. 

Garnish the top with sliced strawberries in any manner.

Enjoy!!!