Sunday, April 13, 2008

Molten Chocolate Cakes

So, recipes don't always work the way you expect them to, or even the same way each time you make them. That can be the beauty of this recipe in particular. Although I feel that it's often hard to get a consistent product, they taste good however they're cooked.
This weekend I felt like everything I made seemed to fall a bit short of my expectations. But that happens, especially since I tend to have ridiculously high expectations. I thought of not posting this recipe because of that, but this blog is about reality when baking gluten-free. When I make them again and they work better, I'll post a different picture, but this is how they turned out this time and they were still good, and everyone enjoyed them, even though there was only one celiac eating them.
It's the dense chocolate cakes that work the best with rice flour blends. I also have a recipe for these with no flour, but have used this one more consistently because of its simplicity.

4 oz semisweet chocolate
1/2 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
6 Tbsp GF flour

Melt the butter and chocolate in microwave safe bowl for a minute on high. Stir so that all the chocolate melts. Then mix in the powdered sugar with a wire whisk. When all of this is incorporated add the eggs and yolks. Again, whisk until all the eggs are combined. Add vanilla and flour and mix well again. Divide evenly among four greased ramekins (3/4 cup size) and bake in 425 degree oven for 12-14 minutes. Let sit for about 1 minute after removing from the oven, then run a knife around the edge of each ramekin, and turn onto a serving plate. Makes 8 servings of 1/2 a cake.

The cooking time is something that you have to watch, and tailor to your own liking. My oven rack was a little too high today, and so the tops were burning. I took them out early, but didn't want them too gooey, so in lieu of removing them from the ramekins immediately, I let them sit, and then they got too cooked, so I didn't get the lovely gooey chocolate lava I was hoping for.
As you can see, they were pretty well cooked through, but they did still taste gooey and good, just not the sort of hot fudge coming from the center I love to have. As you see in the above image, we love to serve these with ice cream. These are really rich, and, unless you're a purist, really need something to cut that. While they're good with cream, they're excellent with ice cream. Here we paired them with a great chocolate peanut butter ice cream we get from a local dairy.

1 comment:

The Kooky Queen--Rachel said...

Your pictures make me want to spend all day in the kitchen. You need to open up a GF kitchen!! I would drive anywhere to eat GF creations that looked like that.