Anyone who knows me well enough could probably tell you I'm not exactly the most domestic gal on the planet. While my sister would do our late (and very talented in all things homey) mother proud, I can't really sew, I'm not particularly into crafting, and I haven't scrap-booked in about 10 years. Well somehow, somewhere along the line I became interested in, and learned to enjoy, cooking and baking. (a.k.a. I got married and decided that my husband deserved better than ramen noodles and peanut butter & jelly, even if he did eat them willingly).The problem with deciding to learn to cook after you leave the nest, is that aside from the few (albeit very helpful) tips your parent/grandparent/etc. forcibly impressed upon you, you're pretty much doomed to regular dinner time how-to phone calls to grandma, and watching Food Network to try to pick up on what you weren't smart enough to learn at home in the first place. While sorting out the programs that didn't require me to keep caviar and truffle oil in my pantry, I came across a true little gem. If there ever was a cooking show that could gain a cult following (change that to HAS gained a cult following), it would have to be Good Eats - Alton Brown has become one of my favorite teachers of all things culinary (next to grandma of course), and it doesn't hurt that he has a certain quirky, OCD approach to cooking that I can relate to.
I recently watched the first of three shows he's done on chocolate, and he demonstrated a recipe called "Chocolate Lava Muffins" - I love it so very much that I decided to post it here. (All credits for this recipe go to Food Network, or Alton Brown, or Good Eats... yadda yadda yadda) You can find it on the Food Network website, but somewhere between the show & the web page, the recipe changed slightly. Personally, I stick to the version he presented on his show & it works wonderfully, so that is the one I will post here. :)
Chocolate Lava Muffins
yield 12 muffins
prep time 20 min. plus 2 hours inactive prep
Ingredients -
8 oz (by weight) semisweet chocolate chips (scant 1 1/2 cups)
1 stick butter (plus extra for muffin tin)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c sugar
4 T flour
1 T cocoa powder (plus extra for dusting muffin tin)
1/4 tsp salt
4 eggs
Directions:
Place a small metal bowl over a saucepan with simmering water. Melt the chocolate and butter in the bowl. Remove from heat & stir in vanilla. Smooth mixture with hand mixer. In a separate bowl, sift together dry ingredients.
Beating with a hand mixer on medium speed, add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating each egg completely before adding the next. Continuing to mix, slowly sift the dry ingredients into the chocolate mixture. Once added, beat mixture on high until batter is creamy & light in color, about 4 minutes. Chill mixture thoroughly (at least 2 hours)
When you are ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Coat the top & cups of a muffin tin with butter. Dust cups & top with cocoa powder, shaking off the excess. Spoon mixture evenly into each cup. (4 oz scoop or ladle works well) Bake 10-11 minutes, or until outside is cake-like and center is still jiggly. Serve warm.
(I like a really oozy center so I watch them very closely during the last minutes of baking and take them out just before the center has baked completely over, as they WILL set up a little more once removed from the oven - these are great served with ice cream, but there is a recipe for an espresso ice cream sauce on the foodnetwork.com version of this recipe, if you like that sort of thing :)
