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Lava cake recipe

As promised: a quick lava cake that will make your chocolate loving heart melt!

Total time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 cup (4 ounces) unsalted butter, cubed, plus more for greasing the ramekins

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the ramekins

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, preferably 66% cacao Valrhona, chopped (about 1 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons)

2 large eggs, room temperature

2 large egg yolks, room temperature

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

Step 1:

Preheat oven to 450°F. Butter and lightly flour four 6-ounce ramekins. Tap out excess flour. Set the ramekins on a baking sheet.

Step 2:

Fill a medium saucepan with water to a depth of 1 inch; bring to a boil over medium-high, and reduce heat to medium-low to maintain a simmer. Combine chocolate and butter in a medium-size heatproof bowl, and set bowl over simmering water in pan, making sure bottom of bowl doesn’t touch water. Cook over medium-low, stirring occasionally and adjusting heat as needed to maintain a simmer, until chocolate mixture is melted and smooth, 16 to 20 minutes. Remove from heat, and set aside.

Step 3:

Beat the eggs, egg yolks, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl with an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment on high speed until thickened and pale, 2 to 3 minutes.

Step 4:

Whisk melted chocolate until smooth.

Step 5:

Quickly fold melted chocolate mixture and flour into egg mixture in bowl until well combined and no streaks remain.

Step 6:

Spoon batter into prepared ramekins (about 1/2 cup per ramekin) and smooth the top using a small offset spatula if needed. Place baking sheet with ramekins in the preheated oven, and bake until tops of cakes are just set and edges spring back when touched but centers still feel soft, about 9 to 12 minutes.

Step 7:

Remove cakes from oven and let cool in ramekins on baking sheet for 1 minute. Working with one ramekin at a time, cover ramekin with an inverted dessert plate. Carefully turn over, and let stand 10 seconds before lifting the ramekin to unmold cake. Repeat unmolding procedure with remaining cakes. Serve immediately.

Enjoy baking chocaholics!

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How to finish off a perfect dinner night with a mouth watering chocolate after dinner snack: Chocolate Oreo Truffles

Chocolate oreo truffels

For this recipe, we’re using 36 Oreo cookies. The type/flavor of Oreo makes a difference, as the amount of cream filling can vary—more on this below.

Cream Cheese: You need 8 ounces (226g) of full-fat brick cream cheese, not the spreadable kind from a tub. Let it soften to room temperature so it will mix easily with the Oreo crumbs.

Melted Chocolate: Using real chocolate (not candy melts) for coating makes for the best-tasting, richest Oreo truffles. Chop up high-quality bars of baking chocolate. Do not use chocolate chips—the stabilizers in them prevent them from melting smoothly.

Vegetable Oil or Coconut Oil: Just a small amount of oil mixed in with the chocolate thins it out to make it easier to dip/coat the Oreo balls.

A food processor or blender grinds the Oreo cookies into fine crumbs. If you don’t have one, you can place the Oreos in a plastic zipped-top bag and crush them with a rolling pin. The whole cookie, cream filling and all.

Combine the crumbs with softened cream cheese. You can do this with a stand mixer or a hand mixer; or even just do it all in your food processor, if it’s large enough to accommodate the Oreo crumbs plus the cream cheese.

Next, scoop the mixture and roll into balls. You can use a cookie scoop for this, but I usually just use a Tablespoon. Scoop about a Tablespoon of the Oreo truffle filling (about 18–22g), and use your hands to roll it into a ball. The mixture is very wet, but should still be roll-able. If it seems overly wet, refrigerate the mixture for 15 minutes and then try again.

Place the Oreo balls on a plate or small baking sheet lined with parchment paper and place the tray in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, or in the freezer for 30 minutes. You could also make these a day ahead and refrigerate, then dip them the next day.

Why do we chill the Oreo balls? You want the truffles cold and solid as you dip them into chocolate. If they are room temperature or still soft, they will fall apart in your warm melted chocolate.

If you can, keep half of them in the refrigerator while you start dipping the other half in chocolate, because they can soften up quickly while sitting out. This makes coating them in chocolate a lot easier.

Enjoy your after dinner snack!