TWD: Gooey Chocolate Cake

Monday nights in our house are usually devoted to catching up on whats on the DVR... This week, it involved some good old fashioned middle ages 'relations' as The Tudors returned to Showtime. I'm a new fan of the series, but used the reruns to get up to date, and so far find it enjoyable, especially in comparison to the "Other Boleyn Girl" and "The Boleyn Inheritance" books I recently read, as well as of course the Natalie Portman/Scar Jo movie.


Anyhow, I figured nothing would go better with some medieval 'relations' than some decadent chocolate cake... and this week's challenge fit the bill.

After the multi-step recipes of past weeks, I was almost relieved at the simplicity of this week's recipe. So easy, in fact, that I came home from work, cleaned the leftover dishes from the weekend, put together that night's dinner (Broiled portobello mushrooms with a spinach salad), and then set about getting the ingredients ready for the chocolate cake. I knew with the chopping and melting of chocolate, I didn't want to put the cake into the oven until after dinner, so I simply sliced, diced, and measured out each component before sitting down to eat.

After dinner, I quickly melted up the chocolate and butter, and went to work mixing everything together. I was a little puzzled as to why Dorie recommends disposable muffin cups, but after the sticking issue with the mini brownies I made, I made sure to thoroughly grease and flour my muffin tin before divvying out the batter. The 6 servings seemed ideal for us being a family of 2... too many baked goods lead to waistlines that closer resemble that of the REAL Henry VIII in his later years than the lithe hunk that is Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Setting the cakes in the oven and dutifully setting the timer, I always fret about baking things that have no way of telling that they are "done" such as a a toothpick coming out clean. But I followed the instructions to a T, letting them bake and rest. Then came the task of removing them from the pan. The finely chopped chocolate had melted making a chocolaty top to each one, which made me wonder about the wiseness of 'turning them out' onto their tops. But the Gooey center worried me if they were to puncture if I tried to lift them out of the pan. In the end I turned them out onto the parchment paper, deciding a little lost chocolate off the top was better than lost chocolate from the middle.

I served up two cakes with some Breyers coffee ice cream, and we set down to enjoy them and start up the DVR. I think there were more moans of ecstasy from us than the TV as we devoured them.




While the middle was soft and moist, It isn't as 'gooey' as past chocolate cakes I've had. This recipe is sinfully delicious and easy, next time I might only cook them for 10-11 minutes rather than the 13 to get more of a gooey center.



Gooey Chocolate Cake
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon salt
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate,
4 ounces coarsely chopped,
1 ounce very finely chopped
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
6 tablespoons of sugar

Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. butter (or spray – it’s easier) 6 cups of a regular-size muffin pan, preferably a disposable aluminum foil pan, dust the insides with flour and tap out the excess. Put the muffin pan on a baking sheet.
Sift the flour, cocoa and salt together.
Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, put the coarsely chopped chocolate and the butter in the bowl and stir occasionally over the simmering water just until they are melted – you don’t want them to get so hot that the butter separates. Remove the bowl from the pan of water.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk until homogeneous. Add the sugar and whisk until well blended, about 2 minutes. Add the dry ingredients and, still using the whisk, stir (don’t beat) them into the eggs. Little by little, and using a light hand, stir in the melted chocolate and butter. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups and sprinkle the finely chopped chocolate over the batter.
Bake the cakes for 13 minutes. Transfer them, still on the baking sheet, to a rack to cool for 3 minutes. (There is no way to test that these cakes are properly baked, because the inside remains liquid.)
Line a cutting board with a silicone baking mat or parchment or wax paper, and, after the 3-minute rest, unmold the cakes onto the board. Use a wide metal spatula to lift the cakes onto dessert plates.