Molten Lava Cakes

Now that we've got breakfast, dinner, and treats to give away covered, we need a quick and easy, yet sinfully delicious dessert. You know you can always count on me for that, right??

There are a million recipes out there for Molten Lava Cakes. I've tried tons of different ones and honestly I've never had a bad one. I mean, how can anything that looks like this not be good?! This particular recipe I got from my beautiful, intelligent, and outrageously talented sister-in-law Emily. (You know, since this week we're sucking up to our in-laws and I can't let Kate upstage me.) Can you believe I actually have THREE sister-in-laws named Emily?? For the record they are all beautiful, intelligent, and outrageously talented :) This particular one happens to be married to my brother Nate and I love her.

I used to make mini chocolate souffles a lot, but these are so much easier and they turn out every time so I've bagged teh souffles. Seriously, you can whip these suckers up in less than 5 minutes and be eating them shortly after that. So easy, so impressive, and so so good.

And since I know at least one person will ask- yes you need to use bittersweet chocolate! Remember you're adding sugar too and these are very rich as is. Adding a sweet chocolate like milk or semi will be a little overkill. Besides bittersweet chocolate is my favorite! Live on the wild side.


Individual Molten Lava Cakes

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4 T real butter

1/3 C sugar
3 large eggs

1/3 C flour
1/4 t salt
8 oz bittersweet chocolate*, melted

*8 ounces is about 1 1/3 C of bittersweet chocolate chips. Make the 1/3 cup a little over-full and you should be good

Additional Ingredients:
powdered sugar for dusting

sweetened whipped cream for serving

butter and sugar for preparing pans

You can either bake these in a muffin pan, in ramekins, or even oven-proof

mugs. If you use a muffin tin you'll get 6 cakes and depending on the size of the ramekins you'll get 4-6.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. To prepare pans, use your fingers (or the butter wrapper) to rub butter in the muffin tins or ramekins. Sprinkle in some granulated sugar to coat the entire inner surface and tap out any extra discard.

In a bowl with a mixer beat the 4 T butter and 1/3 C sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine flour and salt and slowly add it into the butter mixture just until combined. Stir in melted chocolate by hand, just until combined. Don't over mix.

Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups or ramekins and then place them on a baking sheet. (If using ramekins you'll want them not quite 3/4 full)

The cute heart-shaped ramekins I used are from Michael's craft Store. They come in pink, white, and red and they're $1 each. When I was in the store the other day I heard them calling out, "Saaaaara, buuuuuy us, buuuuy us..." and who am I to argue with talking ramekins??

Mmmm....gooey chocolate. Don't you wish you could stick your finger in that?

Bake just until tops of cakes no longer jiggle when pan is lightly shaken, about 8-10 min for a muffin pan, and 10-12 for ramekins. Remove from oven and let stand 10 min.

You can serve them one of two ways. Obviously if you're using a muffin pan you'll need to invert the cakes and place them on serving plates. They should pop right out after you run a sharp knife around the edge. Since I had these darling pink heart dishes I served mine

right in the dish. You're the cook, do what you want! Dust with powdered sugar and serve with a dallop of sweetened whipped cream.

Okay, the hearts look pretty cute inverted too.

Now here's why they're called Molten Lava Cakes. They cook beautifully on the outside- kind of a mixture between a brownie and a souffle. But then when you bust that sucker open you get a gooey, flowing, chocolate, lava-like surprise.

I love breaking through that first layer and seeing the oozing center. Gets me excited every time, like I don't know it's there!

This picture does a good job of showing the different textures. A tiny bit of crisp on the very top, then a soft, chewy layer, then the molten sauce in the center.

These little babies are rich, so definitely have some whipped cream, or some ice cream to go with it. Definitely a Valentine-Worthy dessert!