Chocolate Lava Cake

I first wanted to say hi to you all as I'm new :-) I have been trying to accept the invitation for days, but blogspot was having issues. Gah. My dad's birthday was the other day, and he LOVES chocolate. I always saw people make the chocolate lava cakes on cooking shows, so I decided to try to make it, myself, for his birthday. They turned out SO yummy that I had to share the recipe!


Chocolate Lava Cake

* 1 cup unsalted butter or unsalted margarine*
* 8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips, or bars, cut into bite-size chunks
* 5 large eggs
* 1/2 cup sugar
* Pinch of salt
* 4 teaspoons flour (or matzo meal, ground in a blender to a fine powder)
* 8 extra-large paper muffin cups (or use regular paper muffin cups, which will make 12 cakes)
*
* Garnish:
* 1 (6 ounce) container raspberries, barely moistened and rolled in about
* 1/2 cup sugar right before serving


DIRECTIONS

1. Melt butter and chocolate in a medium heat-proof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water; remove from heat. Beat eggs, sugar and salt with a hand mixer in a medium bowl until sugar dissolves. Beat egg mixture into chocolate until smooth. Beat in flour or matzo meal until just combined. (Batter can be made a day ahead; return to room temperature an hour or so before baking.)
2. Before serving dinner, adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 450 degrees. Line a standard-size muffin tin (1/2 cup capacity) with 8 extra-large muffin papers (papers should extend above cups to facilitate removal). Spray muffin papers with vegetable cooking spray. Divide batter among muffin cups.
3. Bake until batter puffs but center is not set, 8 to 10 minutes. Carefully lift cakes from tin and set on a work surface. Pull papers away from cakes and transfer cakes to dessert plates.
4. Top each with sugared raspberries and serve immediately.



I don't know if you guys have seen the muffin tins shaped like mini bread loaves, but that is what I used. I would suggest sticking closer to the 8 minutes rather than the 10. I thought that it didn't look "done enough" on the top so I left it in, and there wasn't as much "lava" as I would have wanted. Not bad for a first try, though!

Enjoy!