Molten Chocolate Cake

My dear husband's birthday fell on the Sunday after Thanksgiving this year, which meant we got to celebrate with his side of the family while they were in town for the holiday. We ate some noodles together, not the specific longevity noodles dish, but it still symbolized our wish for longevity in Tim's life. In addition to the noodles, I cooked him a breakfast of Thanksgiving leftovers including fried cornbread stuffing cakes, fried chorizo, and fried eggs. Hmm, after typing that out, I suppose my breakfast canceled out the longevity wishes.

Lastly, we celebrated his birthday with these molten chocolate cakes. This guy loves his dark chocolate, so I gave it to him in this oozy cake form. Molten chocolate cakes are really just undercooked brownies, so I used Tim's birthday recipe from two years ago and put it to the test. I halved the recipe (made some slight modifications), put the batter into ramekins, cut down the baking time, and out came these great cakes. Inverting the cakes was harder than I thought, so after the first one fell apart during the process, I decided to keep the rest in their ramekins. If anyone has a trick to keep them intact, I'd love to hear it!


Molten Chocolate Cake
adapted from previous recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter + 1-2 tablespoons unsalted butter for the ramekins
4 ounces dark chocolate (Valrhona 70%)
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons flour + flour for dusting

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Butter 4 ramekins (4-ounce) and lightly flour.
2. In a double boiler, melt together the butter with the chocolate.
3. Beat together the eggs, egg yolks, and sugar while chocolate and butter mixture is still melting. Pour egg mixture into the melted chocolate along with the flour and quickly beat until just combined.
4. Divide batter into ramekins. (To bake at a later time, store cakes in the fridge, and bring back to room temperature before baking) Bake for 10 minutes until the sides are set while the center is still soft.
5. To serve without ramekin, invert ramekin onto a plate and let sit for a few minutes. Lift mold carefully so the cake should fall out on plate. Serve immediately.