Molten Lava Cakes

Molten Lava Pots are one of my favourite desserts to get at a restaurant. They are truly decadent with their rich molten centers and intense chocolate flavour. My grandma and I had been hoping to make them together for months, but decided to wait until my chapter draft was finished, as that was a very important project for me. When we finally got around to making them, they were worth the wait: just as superb as I'd hoped, and as delicious as I remember them from eating out.

As you can see from the photo below, we accidentally used milk chocolate (instead of bittersweet) when we made them. I would recommend using 70% good-quality dark chocolate when making this recipe, as using milk chocolate results in a slightly less chocolaty lava pot, and these are best with an intense dark chocolate flavour. However, they were excellent with the milk chocolate as well.

The recipe follows!

Ingredients:
4 squares, 70% dark chocolate
1/2 cup butter
1 cup icing sugar
3 whole eggs
6 tablespoons flour

Directions:

• Grease 6 individual heatproof baking cups with butter, and preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.
• Melt the butter and chocolate in a medium saucepan, whisking constantly. Gradually stir in the remaining ingredients in the order written above. Mix well, ensuring all of the chocolate is melted, and divide between the baking cups.
• Bake the lava pots at 400 degrees F for approximately 15 minutes, until the outside is just cooked, but the inside still gushy. A toothpick inserted into the center of a cup should not come out clean!
• Serve with whipped cream, or ice cream and fresh berries.

Enjoy!