Chocolate Molten Cakes

I do not share my kitchen well.

If you come to a dinner party of mine early, do not expect to be handed a knife and asked to chop.  You may open a bottle of wine.  You may pick the itunes playlist.  You may, in an emergency, be handed a ten dollar bill and sent out to the nearest grocery store when I realize that I am out of, oh, say, sugar, just as I am about to make dessert (sorry, Kristen).  But as for help in the kitchen?  No thank you.

My mother is more or less the same way.  So when I asked, last Christmas, how to help her in the kitchen, she delegated dessert to me.  With one nonnegotiable caveat: chocolate.

And this was the result (yes, this post is really old -- it sat in my drafts box for an embarrassingly long time -- but just in time for *this* coming holiday season!). These are extra molten, easy on the cake, which to me is perfection defined.  Just break the outer layer of cake, and the inside is warm, chocolate molten-ness.  If that's not dessert heaven, I don't know what would be.

Chocolate Molten Cakes

Adapted from The Joy of Baking by Julia Child

INGREDIENTS:

8 onces semi-sweet chocolate

1/4 cup butter, plus extra for ramekins, softened

3 large eggs

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup sugar, plus extra for ramekins

1 pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp strong black coffee

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter four 3/4 cup ramekins, and dust the insides with sugar. Place the prepared molds on a baking sheet and set aside.

2. On a double-boiler, melt chocolate until smooth, stirring only once the edges of the chocolate pieces start to melt, and as little as possible. Add butter, cream, vanilla, and salt, and whisk until smooth and chocolate cooled.

3. Add egg yolks to chocolate mixture and whisk until incorporated.

4. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites and sugar to form soft peaks. Fold 1/2 the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, and then fold the incorporated mix into the remaining egg whites.

5. Gently pour chocolate batter into ramekins. Bake for 10 minutes, and serve.

Makes four individual cakes.