When I say comfort food, I really meant to have it served right in their mould. You really don't have to invert it onto a plate if you don't want to, though it does look way more gorgeous that way. But this is really what I eat. I do like photographing food but not to the extend where I sacrifice my comfort food for photo. For me, comfort food is something you can dig in with a spoon and it comes in a bowl or something that must surround it. I like digging in stuffs. Gives me security rather than having it inverted out. I know, I have issues.
The inverted lava cake photos were made sometime back, when I was all in the mood to dress up and look beautiful. And when I need to serve it to my guests. But to celebrate Easter dinner with my housemates, I serve it the comfort food way!
And did I mention I think that cake looks gorgeous? Unlike other cakes that's drenched with icing sugar and ice cream to make photos look good, mine is simply dusted with real good cacao and still heavenly and not cloyingly sweet even when eating it with unsweetened whipped cream. I like it, the photos are a good reflection of what I really eat, albeit a little colder! Dig in when it's warm.
Lava Cakes are a good mistake. A chef once underbaked a chocolate cake once and needed to serve it up to the king immediately. He presented them as molten lava cake and king was really impressed. If you have issues with raw eggs and don't like the idea of eating undercooked batter, click
here for a lava cake I did previously. This one uses a ganache ball as filling and even if you overbaked them, you still get flowy magma. Just use pasteurized eggs and make these! They are yummy!
These are adapted from
Pioneer Woman, and she adapted it from
Brandielle from Tasty Kitchen. I half the recipe and yield four little rich lava cakes. My moulds were really small, I use one of the Portuguese egg tart mould. And I measured, it's 5 tbsp (75ml) capacity per each little cup. They are rich so I made them small. Things just taste yummier when they come in small servings. And can I say, use real good chocolates please because the lava will taste just exactly like the chocolates that you use. I use Lindt's, 85% cocoa content. So yummy....so heavenly!!!!
Molten Chocolate Lava Cake(makes 4 real small cake using 5 tbsp capacity moulds)
Nuke 60g bittersweet chocolates and 55g butter in the microwave on high. I did mine for 45seconds, both butter and chocolates chopped up into pieces. Grab a whisk and whisk the chocolate into submission. It will look as if it will not blend in with the butter at first but soon enough, everything has to give way to chocolates.
Throw in 60g sifted pure icing sugar and whisk to combine. Crack in 1 egg and 1 extra yolk and whisk to combine again. Finally throw in 3 tbsp plain flour and whisk until very well combined. Did I mention I didn't have plain flour so I used self raising flour instead? It doesn't matter, just don't use wholemeal flour and that sorta thing.
Grease your moulds with BUTTER. Don't use vegetable oil, it's Easter and everyone should indulge. Generously grease them if you want to do the fancy serving way. Pour into moulds, trying not to get to the sides of the mould else inverting might be an issue.
Bake them in a preheated oven of 220°C for 13 minutes. Stand them for a minute and eat them up. Serve with large mound of unsweetened whipped cream alongside and more cacao powder if desired.
For the cream, I whipped up 1 cup of double cream with 1 tbsp of vanilla castor sugar until it reaches firm peak. Love the calories. It surprises me sometimes how special cream is. The more you add, the lighter it gets. And the calories in it is just inversely proportional to the lightness.
This is how I like mine. I dollop whipped cream over it and eat it together. Do it because you're worth it. I'd rather go to hell just to eat this devilish little cake everyday! Seriously, these are life-changing. My life can never be the same anymore.
Happy Easter everyone!
And before I sign off, here is an awards that have been given to me by
Anncoo of
Anncoo's Hobby and
Tracie of
Bitter Sweet Flavour. Thank you so much for thinking I am worth it, I am so flattered and seriously touched.
And as always, I can be very disappointing sometimes, I do know if you read
here,
here or
here. I think I'll make this a leaf node in the tags spanning across the blogosphere. In a quick 5 mins Google, it looks like most bloggers that I have known and those that I have not already known have already been tagged, and I'm not going to spread the contagion outside the organization further :)
Pavlova is native to Australasian, mainly Australians and New Zealanders. Named after a Russian ballerina, a properly done pavlova has a crisp crust when tapped with the back of a spoon around it. When sliced, you can hear the heavenly sound of crackling crust followed by a soft, pillowy feeling when you slice through the middle. It is baked at low temperature and allowed to cool in the oven until it is ready to be served. A little crack on the surface is normal and it will all soon be covered with cream so it is absolutely normal to get cracks. Usually served with generous amount of chantilly cream and loads of summer fruit, it is no surprise nor wonder why Pavlova remains Aussie's favourite till today. Those sold outside are generally too sweet for my liking. When I make it at home, I cut down the sugar a bit and add a pinch of salt to take away the sweetness as I personally don't favour fruits that are too tart to minus back the sweetness of the Pavlova.
MasterChef new season is back and in conjunction with Anzac Day today, I couldn't resist making Donna Hay's Pavlova to commemorate and respect Anzac Day. Some other typical Aussie food include lamington, meat pies, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, Tim Tam and so forth. I've kept this simple by decorating it with seasonal fruits. I've flavoured the chantilly cream with vanilla bean and a good splash of Vanilla Vodka as well. Chantilly cream is basically whipped cream with small amount of sugar in it. The low baking temperature puffs up the Pavlova while the long cooking time dries it out to give it a crispy shell. If you rush it and bake it at a temperature too high, sugar will separate and ooze out like sap. It won't work. Pavlova can be stored, plain by itself for up to 5 days in an airtight container.
