Saturday, February 12, 2011

Love and Peanut Butter Chocolate Luvah Cake

IMG_3917I have been calling in all my favors.

Chances are, if you know me, you’ve done me a favor lately, whether you owe me one or not.

I need to thank those who wrote me letters of reference, featured my blog in the newspaper, invited us for dinner, helped edit my pictures, gave me advice, gave me pictures, listened to me complain, held my crying baby, gave my baby gifts (even from London), entertained my crazy kid, helped me do my work, and forgave me for my flakiness.

IMG_3895Oh, and thank you to the person who let me borrow 24 ramekins on a moment’s notice so I could make chocolate molten lava cakes with my culinary class.

Thank you, dear readers and commenters and people who have been so complimentary. You have helped keep up my spirits in this stressful time.

Special thanks to chocolate lava cakes that keep giving me reasons to show up and run nightly, and scales that never lie.IMG_3905

But the person I need to thank the most, our resident artist:

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My love. I didn’t give you any credit in that article, and I’m feeling pretty silly for it. You’re the one who makes the magic happen. You are the glue that holds this crazy together.

I never make thank you cards, but sometimes I make thank you treats. IMG_3930

Peanut Butter Chocolate Luvah (Lava) Cake (serves 4)

(print this)

Confession: this is the easiest and fastest cake to make. Ever. I’ve made 5 chocolate lava cake recipes in the last two weeks and this lava cake base is my favorite for its ease and flavor. Some of my students found it to be too much chocolate while others were happily scraping their plates. Predictably, there were some students who preferred Hershey’s milk chocolate to Green and Black’s dark chocolate during our chocolate tasting lesson. Leave out the peanut butter if you like. Other add-ins we tried with my class were nutella, crushed oreo cookies and bananas. Experimenting is just a good excuse to make more.

  • 5 oz dark or semisweet chocolate (semisweet chocolate chips do work here)
  • 1/4 lb unsalted butter
  • 3/4 Cup sugar
  • 1/4 Cup flour
  • 3 eggs
  • 4 teaspoons peanut butter
  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter 4 4oz ramekins (the whole inside, not just the bottom). Don’t be shy with the butter. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and put into a microwave safe bowl with the butter. Microwave for 1 minute, stirring after thirty seconds. After 1 minute stir and make sure it is completely melted. Microwave in 20 second intervals if it is not.
  2. In a separate medium bowl, with a wooden spoon mix the sugar, flour and eggs until completely combined.
  3. Add the chocolate mixture slowly into the eggs while stirring until one uniform color.
  4. Put about 1/4 C of the batter into each of the ramekins. Place a teaspoon of peanut butter into each ramekin on top of the batter. Cover with more batter until about 3/4 way full.
  5. Bake the cakes for 10-15 minutes. The time will depend on the actual heat of your oven and the thickness of the ramekin walls. I check often and remove them just when the sides look softly set, the top looks dry and beginning to crack, but it still jiggles in the middle just a little. If you overcook it you will have just a very moist chocolate-y cake (which is good, too). Mine took 13 minutes and two of the ramekins were perfect while the other ones (with thinner walls) were slightly over done.
  6. Softly pull the sides of the cake away from the walls of the ramekins with a knife or spoon, and invert onto a plate. You can also eat it straight from the ramekin. Dust with powdered sugar or garnish with a strawberry if desired. Serve immediately with ice cream, milk, or something to balance the extreme chocolate goodness.

Ok, one more. For the fans.

picture day 3

Hope you have a lovely Valentine’s Day. Make this for yourself even.

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14 comments:

sisinpacific said...

Your welcome.. and thanks for the blog.

Smiths said...

Your "thank you"s are the very best!

chow and chatter said...

looks great will read earlier posts to see how u are hugs

Torviewtoronto said...

delicious cakes

Eliana said...

Hmmm - these cakes look sinfully delicious.

Meg Luby said...

this is so cute :)
happy valentines! thanks for sharing !!
-meg
@ http://www.myscribblednotebook.blogspot.com
@ http://www.clutzycooking.blogspot.com

briarrose said...

Wow that looks wonderful.

elle marie said...

Everything sounds super delish!!! and happy V-day to you. I'm sorry I've missed so many of your posts, I was in the middle of changing domains, and redesigning the site (which is still an ongoing process), and my mum has not been feeling well recently, when you add that with work.... I wanted to stop by and give you the new address, hope you'll bookmark it and come visit sometime.

Maryea {Happy Healthy Mama} said...

Oh, thank you for this recipe. This is my absolute favorite dessert but for some reason I've never tried to make it at home. I always order it when it's on a dessert menu though.

Vicki Wilde said...

Chocolate and peanut butter, my perfect valentines combination! Happy V-day to you!

Kate @ Diethood.com said...

I'd love to get a thank you treat that is fantastic as that lava cake!! Definitely delicious!

Nippon Nin said...

This looks good! sounds like students had great time making and eating. I would love to be in your class.

*Mom's Best Bets said...

Yum. This looks sooo good-Now im hungry

*Mom's Best Bets said...

I'm following you now

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