Molten Lava Cake (Using Cocoa powder)

I am not a chocolate lover. I do make chocolate stuff since kids love chocolate. I have made chocolate desserts for people who love it. This post was written on a request from a reader. She asked if I could bake these and post as part of the Bake-A-Thon. I made it for the post, but there is something very different about this recipe. It doesn't use chocolate bars. So, it is great for those people who cannot get good quality chocolate. And it is great for people like me who hate separating eggs. This uses whole eggs. If you ask me what is the hardest part of baking, my answer would be separating the eggs. (Yeah, I know you are laughing at me right now, but that is the truth)

For those who want to know a little about how this works -
Molten lava cake is basically a brownie batter with reduced flour. You might ask how the center stays gooey. Reason is baking at high temperature which causes the crust to develop. If you bake the same batter for longer time at 350 F, you will get a brownie instead of a molten lava cake. I don't even know why they call it a cake when it is just a brownie. There is no leavening agent in it for it to raise like most of the cake recipes. So, that is my rambling about the science behind this.

One year back - Eggless Almond Date Cake
Two years back - Barley Dosa
Adapted from - Martha Stewart
Ingredients:
Butter - 8 TBSP or 1 stick melted and cooled plus more for the ramekins or muffin pans.
Sugar - 1/3 cup + 9 TBSP (1/3 cup+1/2 cup+1 TBSP) plus more for the pans.
Unsweetened natural cocoa - 3/4 cup + 2 tsp (You can just use 3/4 cup)
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Eggs - 3 large
All purpose flour - 1/3 cup
Vanilla - 1 tsp
Confectioner's sugar for dusting (optional)
Whipped cream or ice cream to serve with

Method:
Preheat the oven to 400 F. Butter 5 - 6 ramekins or muffin cups generously with butter and coat with sugar. In a bowl, whisk together cocoa powder with butter. In another bowl, whisk eggs and sugar till foamy. Add Vanilla to the egg and sugar mixture and mix. Add the egg and sugar mixture to the cocoa and butter mixture. Stir gently to incorporate. Add flour and salt and stir together well. Divide between the ramekins or muffin cups filling almost full (more than 3/4 full should be good). Place the ramekins on a cookie sheet or a baking pan. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes or until the center doesn't jiggle when shaken gently. Remove from the oven and let it rest 10 minutes. Invert on to the serving platter and serve with whipped cream or ice cream. You could dust with confectioner's sugar if you wish. I wanted everything to be visible and confectioner's sugar can hide a lot of details. You can serve it in the ramekin if you like it that way.

Notes:
I did not have bittersweet chocolate at home. If you want to use that, you could use 8 Oz of that (or semisweet chocolate) and then use only 4 TBSP of butter. Sugar needed would be just 1/3 cups. I calculated and converted 8 Oz of bittersweet in terms of cocoa, sugar and butter.

Today is day 12 of the Bake-A-Thon.  My fellow bloggers doing this are - Preethi, Veena, Priya. Accredited online colleges are an option for busy people who want to hone their cooking skills.

Enjoy.