Molten Chocolate Lava Cake - Valentine's Day Dessert

(If you look carefully enough, you can see the entire room in that spoon)

I'm not a Valentine's day girl at all. 

In fact I'm not crazy about any date in the year, be it my own birthday. There have been times I have forgotten my own birthday. For most of the important days in my life, I really like low key celebrations. A simple day at home, with some good home cooked meal and good dessert. That's what I call perfect!

My day like many of you starts early, and the first thing that comes to my mind when I wake up is "hurry". I'm always running to get ready for office, to get the breakfast on table and the struggle with the daily traffic. When I reach office, I'm running around trying to meet deadlines (and tweet and visit blogs).When I reach home which is often late evenings, I'm running to make the dinner (tweet and blog reading) and even though leftovers surfaces most of the time for lunch, sometimes M wants new things for lunch. (that's mainly when the dinner is vegetarian)

Once that's done, I'm running around to get the dishes cleaned, doing university assignments and sometimes attending classes or catching up with office work (and tweeting and reading blogs). And midnight when I can't take no more I hit the bed (still tweeting). So for me personally, any day that I can be home not "running around" (tweeting and reading blogs) and have some chocolate dessert to eat is Valentine's day not particularly 14th February. Since February is also the month Kuwait celebrates its National day and Liberation day, we get quiet a few holidays and that's when I find my Valentine's day! But I know many of you celebrate it and if I can find a way to bring this to you, I don't mind calling it Valentine's day dessert.

There's something so soothing and relaxing about chocolate, I can't emphasize it enough. And when its hot, I'm transported to heaven. This molten chocolate cake with do just that. I had always eyed molten cakes by Paula Deen and The Pioneer Woman but it was not until my sweetest friend Prerna from Indian simmer (a gorgeous blog) posted this cake from Foodista that I really tried it. She is also celebrating her first anniversary this month, so this is for your Prerna. Lots of love and chocolate your way.

Molten Chocolate Lava Cake

Click here for printable version

Serves 6 or 3. Really it depends on who is eating it. 

Ingredients 

100 gm dark chocolate (I used 85% cocoa solid)

1/3 cup butter

1 1/4 cup powdered sugar*

1/3 cup warm water with 2 tsp instant coffee **

2/3 cup all purpose flour

2 egg yolks

2 eggs

Pinch of sea salt

Note

* We like our chocolate really dark. Depending on which chocolate you are using you might want to adjust the sugar. I suggest you start with 1 cup sugar and take your way up from there. The best way is to taste it before you mix the flour.

** I have tried this with 1/3 cup orange juice as well and we love that variation. The taste would be quite subtle but if you love chocolate and orange together, it sure will win you over.

Method

Preheat the oven to 220 C and butter the ramekins. I used 3 1/2 inch ramekins making 3 servings. If you want you can make smaller servings by using smaller ramekins, but remember its valentine's day. And indulgence is a good thing.

Melt chocolate and butter over a double boiler or in the microwave. Add in the powdered sugar. (This is when you taste the chocolate to your preference. This also when you hold your urge to lick the whole bowl. And also when you stop dipping the strawberries into the chocolate)

Once it cools down whip in the eggs and coffee. Then add the flour and salt.

Divide the batter into ramekins.  The original recipe calls for refrigerating the batter for 1 hour before baking but I didn't bother with it.

Bake for 13 minutes until the center is still gooey but the edges have slightly firmed. Run a knife over the edges and invert into dishes.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve immediately.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.