Individual Chocolate Lava Cakes

For his birthday, Hubby requested a Chocolate Molten Cake.  While I already found a recipe by Claire Robinson that is fairly easy to make, I wanted to experiment with different recipes.  I looked through the files I have in the study, and quickly decided that I could not find the recipe that I printed years ago for Lava cake with ganache ball in the middle.  So I went online and had to sift through tons of “Molten Lava Cake” recipes.  Finally, I decided to give Ghirardelli’s recipe a try, because it received 4.5 stars in Allrecipes.com with 73 reviews.  So that is an indication that this is a good stuff.  While I have been using Ghirardelli’s dark chocolate chips for my baking, I don’t know why I haven’t tried their own recipe for this cake.  But now I know what I have been missing!  Also, since I already have a box of used cake flour, why not try this recipe?

Eggs, cake flour, heavy cream, sugar, dark chocolate chips, butter and vanilla were the ingredients.

 

First I combined the two ounce chocolate chips with the heavy cream in a metal bowl.

 

Then, I melted the chocolate chips in a medium pan, with simmering water in it since I don’t have a double boiler.  When it was all done, this is the ganache.  It looks so delicious that I wanted to stick my finger in it and lick it… ha….

 

I transferred the ganache into a smaller bowl so I could put it in the refrigerator.  Note, this ganache was doubled in measurement.  Several reviewers in Allrecipes.com complained that the ganache in the individual cake was too small, I doubled it up.

 

Then I washed that same metal bowl, and melted the butter and the remaining four ounces of chocolate chips.

 

Dumped all of the eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract in my mixing bowl.

 

Using a whisk attachment, I whisked… or, the machine whisked it (to be exact) for five minutes in high speed.  This is what I came up with.

 

Then I poured the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture, as well as adding the flour.  Although I sifted the cake flour, it still looks like it was clumpy.

 

When it was all folded nicely, I transferred the batter into a smaller bowl, since I was preparing this cake way ahead of time.

 

Then, right before dinner, I poured the batter into the prepared ramekins…. Stuff the big ol’ ganache ball into the middle of the batter.  I was way too ambitious here with the ganache… perhaps instead of doubling the ganache, maybe I’ll prepare one and half recipes next time.

 

Baked it for the 15 minutes, and served it with vanilla ice cream…

 

The cake was soft and light and the middle… mmm… I cannot put it into words.  All I can say, as I am typing this, my mouth was watering when I look at the picture…

 

The difference between this cake and Claire Robinson’s recipe was that this cake is not as greasy.  It only uses a stick of butter versus two sticks of butter in Claire’s recipe.  The consistency of this cake is more cake-like and very soft and airy.  Claire’s was on the fudgy brownie side.  The melted chocolate in the center of this recipe is creamier due to the heavy cream, while Claire’s was just melted chocolate baking bar.  All in all, both recipes are great.  This recipe does take more time to prepare, since you have to make the ganache and let it firm up.  And if you are in a hurry, Claire’s recipe is the one you should use.

So!  We’ll see if I can find another Lava Cake recipe that I can try 🙂   Until next time!

Print recipe here.

Individual Chocolate Lava Cakes
Recipe courtesy: Ghirardelli

Ingredients:

6 oz. Ghirardelli 60% Cacao bittersweet chocolate chips or baking bars
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
¼ cup heavy cream
1 stick unsalted butter
1/3 cup sugar
½ tsp. vanilla extract
¼ cup cake flour, sifted

Preparation:

Melt 2 oz. chocolate chips with heavy cream in a double boiler.  Whisk to combine the chocolate and heavy cream into ganache.   Transfer ganache to a small bowl, and let it cool a little bit before putting it in the refrigerator to firm.  Once it is firm, form the ganache into 6 balls, and refrigerate until needed.
Set the oven to 400F.  Grease six 4 oz. ramekins with cooking spray and set aside.
Melt the remainder 4 oz. chocolate chips with butter, set aside to cool.

In a mixer, whip the eggs (whole eggs and egg yolks), sugar, and vanilla in high speed for 5 minutes.  I used the whisk attachment.
Fold the chocolate mixture and flour into the egg mixture until you don’t see flour anymore.  Pour into the prepared ramekins, and insert ganache ball into the center.
Bake for 15 minutes and let it cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Serve with vanilla ice cream or whip cream.

Note: Ganache can be doubled if you want more liquid centers.  Depending on the size of your ramekins, you can get 4 to 6 individual lava cakes.