Ingredients
- Options:
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter
- 4 oz total of high cocoa content choclate bars broken into pieces (I used 65% semi sweet, my frined uses all sorts of different combos - just as long as it's 4 oz. total).
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 T. vanilla extract
- 2 T. instant espresso powder
- 1/4 chipotle powder (or red pepper)
- 2 T orange zest
- or
- 2 T seedless reaspberry jam
Preparation
Step 1
Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease ramekins. Line bottome of ramekins w/ parchment if planning on turning out onto a plate for serving. Don't bother with this step if you will be eating directly from ramekin.
Combine chocolate and butter. Melt in microwave on high, in 30 second intervals, sitrring between each, until melted. After butter/chocolate is melted, add any of the options from above that you desire. (I didn't add any - I had the espresso powder, but just forgot).
In another bowl, combine eggs, sugar and vanilla. Whisk together and add to cooled chocolate mixture. Pour into ramekins. Place ramekins in roasting pan. Fill pan with water until it reaches halfway up the ramekins. Cover with aluminum foil, seal and bake for 30 minutes (for the 4 oz. ramekins) or 45 minutes (for 8 oz. ramekins). DO NOT OVERCOOK. They will be gooey in the middle at this point. That is expected and desired. They may even look uncooked in the center - they are fine.
Remove pan from oven and uncover. Remove from pan and allow cakes to cool for 15 minutes. You can either eat immediately for lava cake texture or chill 4 hours to overnight for a more fudgey, brownie-like texture.