The Savior – Molten Lava Cake

We made pizza, pasta and molten lava cake. And J put his life in grave danger frying calamari for us hungry little people. The calamari was delicious, so I dare say all of us being splattered by oil as we worked on the same side of the kitchen was well worth the risk.

He even ‘tickled our tastebuds’ (his words!) with this INSANE Japanese beef. Please refer to the price tag for the exact amount.

Like a painting.

This thing was just… melt-in-your-mouth. The texture is… almost tofu like? But not quite? I know I made a lot of weird animal-like sounds when I popped it into my mouth. Much to the dismal/confusion of my guests.

Also, I’d decided to be adventurous and made pizza dough using Jamie O’s recipe instead of my usual, and the damn dough was such a flop. I couldn’t cut through the pizza crust at all and we had to use scissors in the end =/ Except for some areas, the pizza was chewy. To think I had made sure every part was toasted to a golden brown too. Very disappointing. I’d have to say though, Jamie had promised a much softer dough to knead with through his use of bread flour – and that bit was true.

We hand made the pasta as before but with Jerm’s help this time, and as usual, B cooked too little of his delicious alfredo sauce (again).

My dear, dear friends as usual, ate everything anyway. They even finished the pizza – which really embarrassed me to be honest. To think that pizzas were my go-to party food in the past. All that made me even more jittery when it came to the dessert course – what if I messed up again? =/ (Yes. I’ve got a complex like that.)

Fortunately, the molten lava cake turned out beautifully. Hence it’s rechristening, The Savior. Besides… When has chocolate fail to mend a broken heart/rescue a sh*t day? Here’s the recipe I’ve modified from Veronica’s Kitchen.

The Savior –  Molten Lava Cake

(Serves 4, though I managed a 5th one)

• 100 g unsweetened dark chocolate
• 100 g butter, cube into small + additional 20g or so to butter the ramekins generously
• 2 eggs
• 50 g caster sugar
• 20 g cake flour – but you can use all-purpose flour
• cocoa powder, to dust the ramekins with. If you do not have cocoa powder, and do not wish to buy more just for this, I’ve seen people use caster sugar. It’s supposed to caramelise to form a crunchy exterior too!

1. Preheat oven to 180˚C
2. Put a clean bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and melt the chocolate and butter in it. When you have a smooth, shiny pool of chocolate, turn off the fire. (I kept it over the water to keep it warm while I do the rest of the stuff.)
3. Generously butter ramekins. This is important so that the cocoa powder will stick to it in the next step and assist the unmoulding in the end.
4. Dust the buttered ramekins with cocoa powder completely. Line with bottle with a square of baking paper just enough to cover the bottom. This is such a great tip that’ll help  you remove the cakes after baking.
5. Beat the eggs and sugar in a large bowl, until the mixture turns pale, thick and fluffy.
6. Fold the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture.
7. Sift in the flour and lightly combine well. If you over mix or go at it with a heavy hand the batter will deflate.
8. Divide the batter into ramekins. Bake in the preheated oven for 9 to 10 minutes, until the outside edges are set, yet with wobbly inside. Remove from oven and let them rest for a minute or two on a wire rack.
9. Invert each cake onto a serving plate and carefully remove the ramekin. If the ramekin gets stuck, do not knock at it on the plate. The sides are barely baked (so the centre can remain gooey) and knocking may break the thin top layer, causing your goo to ooze out before you even serve it! If the cake gets stuck, carefully run a thin knife round the side of the ramekin.

I’ve always prepared my molten lava cakes in advance – who wants to be losing their heads in the kitchen when the guests are here? Simply cover them with some plastic wrap, let it rest at room temperature before baking, and observe to see if the cakes need an extra minute in the oven.

Northern Ireland butter! Could this be the secret ingredient?

Yea, yea… So I added the egg to the chocolate instead of the chocolate to the egg. Sue me.

Swirls!

être bon, mon petits gâteaux!

Perfection! 

And yes. I forgot to take a photo of the chocolate ooozzzinggg out. We were too busy pigging out.  It was good. Trust me.

Heavy Metal

Look who’s got a new toy!

After toying with the idea of getting a pasta machine for months and months (Damn you Junior Masterchef Australia!), we finally came home with this big boy yesterday. For ages I told myself, “Pfft, I can make this work with a rolling pin! Fancy machines, I scoff at you! If Italian Nonnas in secluded villages can make pasta without a machine, so can I!”

Yes. Delusions of grandeur plus laziness doth not a pasta maker maketh.

Anyway, Titania (Where’s Oberon? Hurhurhur.) is no damsel in distress.

She is one metal lovin’ lady. I might just incorporate her into my workouts just to get my money’s worth.

So of course, dinner tonight was pasta.

Not contented with having freshly made pasta, I traded the water needed in the pasta recipe for tomato paste so we can have some orange-coloured pasta.

I doubled the quantity so we could have fettucini tonight, and I could stuff me some pumpkin ravioli for The Guinea Pig.

Most of the steps were simple. So simple I could cry.

Orange Pasta

• 1 egg
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 125 g all-purpose flour
•  40 ml tomato puree/pasta sauce (Note that as tomato puree is not as ‘liquid’ as water, you might need a bit more than this.)

1. Combine  the flour and salt and make a well in the flour.
2. Crack the egg and pour half the tomato puree into the well you’ve created. Mix using a fork to beat the egg while bringing in the flour around the sides of the well.  The mixture should form a stiff dough. Adjust by adding more puree if you need to.
3. On a lightly floured surface, knead dough for about 3 to 4 minutes. Let the dough rest for about 20 minutes.
4. Divide the dough into workable portions, then roll out and cute with a pasta machine.

At this point, I covered the dough with a damp cloth to prevent it from drying out and let it rest, and started working on the pumpkin filling.

Now. I checked out this Butternut Squash Ravioli recipe, but ended up seasoning it completely differently because I was going for a sweeter flavour. (Can’t tell you my exact measurements, but for double the portion, I included the shallots, skipped the cheese, replaced nutmeg with cinnamon and put in a tablespoon of palm sugar.) Perhaps one day I’ll follow that one.

The pumpkin filling was simple enough too. I just had to keep tasting it because I was trying (so hard) to replicate the super yummy ones from Huber’s.

What was difficult, surprisingly, was rolling out the dough!

My (over) enthusiastic project mate would rather watch a Youtube instructional video than read the instructions on paper. Hmm. Then the pasta was cranked out too quickly, resulting in some caterpillar-ish squiggly bits. Even then, we pressed on.

May I present to you… Our pasta hanging contraption?

Almost see-through!

The fettucini done, I started on my ravioli – which was so tiring, ironically, because I tried to use this fancy ravioli cutter.

Wayyy easier with a knife.

Tada! Ravioli, done!

And just for good measure, here’s dinner:

I’d have to say, the pasta was really soft yet had a nice chew to it. I even had a bit of the raw dough (HEH) and it was gooood.

Updates on the pumpkin ravioli later on!

xx

Dinner Tonight: Two Stuffed Pastas and One Naughty Tart

B and I couldn’t resist another trip to Huber‘s to pick up too much some meat. Just as we were about to go, B signalled to me from the front of a counter, barely able to conceal his excitement and I knew we had found dinner.

Meet Pumpkin Ravioli and Four Cheese Tortellini.

Made a Spinach Cheese sauce to go with this and it just balances the sweet, almost dessert like flavour of the pasta. In loveee. (Which is code for ‘I’m gonna attempt to make this.’)

This one, I made a spicy sausage tomato sauce to go with. We were (unfortunately) underwhelmed by the tortellini. While we were glad they weren’t super salty as we’d initially feared… there wasn’t that much flavour going on as well.

We decided to have a proper dessert while watching Se7en. (Yeah. I know. Gluttony Guy didn’t put us off. Neither did Sloth Guy.)

Remember the mess I got myself (and my dining table) into a few days back? Well, that yielded this…

This recipe from Laura Calder is something I go back to all the time. The only difference is that I make tartlets instead of a whole tart cos…. well… cos I won’t be tempted into finished the whole damn thing on my own at one go.

I usually dial down the sugar because I loveeee that acidic sting, but I’ve followed the recipe to the letter before and it’s great.

Go. Make. Eat. Now.