chocolate lava cake & sprinkle cookies
This is another post from the archives. I wrote it back in 2020 and just got around to posting it.
One of my most favorite things to do is bake with my baking bud, Micaela. In our most recent baking session, we made molten chocolate lava cake and sprinkle cookies.
There are a lot of desserts out there that I really like, but I’d have to say that my favorite dessert is molten chocolate lava cake. In my opinion, there’s not much better than melty chocolatey goodness inside a warm chocolate cake. If you can’t tell, I’m a real chocolate fan :)
To make our molten chocolate lava cake even better, we topped it with a big scoop of cold ice-cream. It pairs so well with the warm, moist cake. This is a nice dessert to make after dinner to surprise your family and friends. It bakes very quickly—just pop it in the oven for a bit and you got a gooey, delectable dessert ready in minutes.
Baking this cake got me thinking more about my love for cake, and I decided to do some research on the history of cake. I was curious about who made the first cake as well as the different milestones of cake making. Here’s what I learned.
On the history of cake…
One of my first questions was: Who invented cake? According to a How Stuff Works article, nobody really knows who made the first cake. What we do know is that the ancient Egyptians were great bakers. They made honey sweetened dessert breads, and it seems that cake started off as a modified bread product. The early cakes were flat and dense, which greatly contrast today’s fluffy, airy cakes.
The article also taught me more about leavening. In order to get that lovely fluffiness in a cake, you need some sort of leavening agent. A leavener helps create air bubbles in the cake, which results in a lighter, more fluffy cake. Romans were the ones who most likely perfected the practice of adding yeasts as a leavening agent, and later Italians developed the method of using whipped eggs as a leavening agent. By the 19th century, people commonly used baking soda and baking powder which made the process of leavening more efficient.
Directions
Put the butter in a medium bowl and melt it in the microwave. Add the chocolate to the hot butter and stir until melted.
Crack 2 eggs into a bowl, and add 2 more yolks (discard the extra whites). Add the sugar, and beat or whisk until light and thick, about 1 minute. Add egg mixture and 2 teaspoons flour to the melted chocolate; beat until combined.
Butter and lightly flour four 4-ounce molds or ramekins (make sure not to miss any spots, or the cakes will stick). Tap out the excess flour. Divide the batter among the molds. (At this point you can refrigerate them for up to 3 hours; just bring them back to room temperature before baking.)
When you’re ready to bake, heat the oven to 450. Put the molds on a rimmed baking sheet and bake until the cakes have puffed up a bit, the tops are barely set and the cakes still jiggle slightly when shaken, 7 to 9 minutes (better underbaked than overbaked). Let sit for 1 minute.
Put a plate on top of the ramekin and (with a potholder to protect your hand) carefully invert the cake onto the plate. Let it sit for 10 seconds, then lift up the ramekin. Serve immediately, with ice cream, sorbet or whipped cream.
My Notes
This recipe tastes great with chocolate bars with nuts in them. It adds a nice textural element that pairs perfectly with the rich chocolate cake. We used chocolate with almonds in it. This cake also goes very nicely with a scoop of ice-cream. Lastly, the original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of sugar, but we decided to omit it because we thought that the chocolate would provide enough sweetness.
Ingredients
½ cup unsalted butter, plus more for buttering the molds
4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate or chocolate bar with nuts, chopped into small pieces
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons flour, plus more for dusting the mold
Ice cream (optional)
I love these sprinkle cookies too because they’re super bright and festive. Also, you can customize the colors of the sprinkles for any type of celebration or holiday (eg. red, white, and blue for the 4th of July; red, green, and white for Christmas, etc.).
Directions
reheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare sheet pans by lining them with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter, sugar, and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl and add the vanilla and egg, beating on low until incorporated. Add the flour, baking soda, salt, and cream of tartar, and beat on low speed just until the dry ingredients are combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl and add the sprinkles. Beat just until combined.
Scoop out 1-1/2 tablespoon sized scoops (I use a medium cookie scoop) and roll each dough ball briefly in your hands to smooth out the rough edges of dough. Place on the prepared baking sheets 2 inches apart. Bake in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes, or until the tops of the cookies have just begun to crack and the edges are set. Allow to cool on the sheet pans for about 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to complete cooling.
My Notes
The original recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar, but we decided to reduce it to 1/4 cup because we wanted our cookies to be less sweet. Bake the cookies until the tops have small cracks running throughout.
Ingredients
10 tablespoons (140 gm) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup (200 gm) sugar
½ cup (100 gm) brown sugar
2–1/2 teaspoons clear vanilla (or pure vanilla extract)
1 large egg
2 cups (260 gm) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup (160 gm) rainbow sprinkles
