Dorie, Tuesdays and a Gooey Chocolate Cake

Is it possible that it's Tuesday already??? The weeks just seem to fly by here at Oak Cottage. One barely gets started on Sunday and the next thing you know it's Saturday again!!! Nevermind . . . weeks are just like buses, there's always another one just around the corner!

I was sorely tempted this week to pass up on this challenge. I had just made a Celebration Cake at the weekend for my Daring Baker's challenge, and thought to myself . . . did I really need another batch of cake(s) hanging around my countertop tempting me like a siren of the sea???? Not to mention I have been trying to DIET. (Sorry for the dirty four letter word, it just slipped out!!) Usually I can resist baked goodies, but chocolate . . . cake . . . gooey . . . those three words are very tempting and hard to resist. Very tempting indeed, and so I did what any other dieting baker would do (especially when that baker is a chocoholic) . . . I caved . . . and I plunged into the challenge yesterday afternoon with complete gusto!



For this week's challenge Leigh of Lemon Tartlet had chosen Gooey Chocolate Cake. Now, . . . my Todd is not a chocolate cake lover. (I know!!! Is he insane???) He loves chocolate ice cream, chocolate bars . . . hot chocolate . . . but he cannot stand chocolate cake of any description. I, on the other hand, will quite happily wrap my trembling lips around anything chocolate, just as long as it's not chocolate milk . . . how odd is that??? Anyways . . . I digress. Being on a DIET (there's that dirty word again!) it would definitely be a challenge to have this creation around, and with me not being able to pawn it off on Todd, twice as challenging to be sure. But, I'm a brave soul and I'm always ready to sacrifice for the sake of baking, chocolate and . . . Dorie.

At work, I often make these lovely little melting chocolate cakes for desserts to be served at dinner parties. The ladies always oooh and ahhh over them and they are wonderfully fudgy with a centre of ooozing chocolate that pours out the minute you tear open the delectable chocolate cakey crust that covers the outside. I was really looking forward to discovering a new version that I could try out on them at some point in the future.



All in all, it was not a very difficult recipe to execute. It went together in no time at all. When it comes to melting chocolate and butter, I am well versed in the skills needed to do so efficiently, and without problem. Likewise, beating sugar and eggs . . . not to mention folding lucious ingredients together with ease. I thought I'd be a smartie pants this time and grate the chocolate for on the top, thinking to myself that you just can't get any finer than that. When I was finished though, I had quite a little pile of chocolate there and I found myself wondering how on earth it was all going to fit on the top of six little cakes . . . but I piled it all on top anyways and there was a lovely little mountain of chocolate sitting on each one. I popped them into the oven and set my timer for exactly 13 minutes, and then I waited.



I was a little bit worried as I had read some of the other baker's comments over on the Tuesdays With Dorie page and it seemed that some of them were coming out like muffins and not a few of them were not melting at all in the middle, so I watched them like a mother hawk. At precisely thirteen minutes I grabbed them from out of the oven. They looked wonderfully level on top . . . not rounded at all, which seemed to be right to me, plus . . . there was a lovely puddle of melted chocolate sitting on top of each, which also looked promising. I waited the alloted three minutes before tipping them out and then I prepared a plate to receive one of them.

I wanted to decorate it with some cocoa powder and a drizzle of deliciously decadent muscovado toffee sauce. Cocoa was sifted . . . sauce was drizzled . . . one of the cakes was gingerly lifted into the centre . . . a dollop of rich clotted cream spooned delicately on top . . . and then I carefully tore into the side of the cake with my fork . . . and waited . . .



Where was the oooze??? Where was the melting treasure of chocolate that I was expecting to come tumbling out onto the plate??? There was none??? To be sure, it was nice and fudgy looking in the centre and very moist . . . but there was no ooozing rich river of melted chocolate to tempt my tingling tastebuds . . .

I was crestfallen. What had I done wrong? I had followed the directions exactly, so there was nothing wrong. Was it because I had grated my chocolate for on top? I'll never know . . . well not unless I bake them again and this time only chop the chocolate for sprinkling on top, not to mention cutting the baking time down just a little. Oh, the pain of it all, not to mention the trials one must suffer through . . . all for their art . . .

In the meantime, it was rather good, and quite a bit gooey, and not just a little dangerous to have around this dieting chocoholic!!!! I only had one bite!!! I promise!!! Would I lie to you???Don't forget you can check out the Dorie blog roll and see all the other gorgeous versions of this same recipe here: Tuesdays With Dorie

*Gooey Chocolate Cake *

Makes 6

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon salt
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate,
4 ounces coarsely chopped,
1 ounce very finely chopped
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
6 tablespoons of sugar

Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. butter (or spray – it’s easier) 6 cups of a regular-size muffin pan, preferably a disposable aluminum foil pan, dust the insides with flour and tap out the excess. Put the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

Sift the flour, cocoa and salt together.

Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, put the coarsely chopped chocolate and the butter in the bowl and stir occasionally over the simmering water just until they are melted – you don’t want them to get so hot that the butter separates. Remove the bowl from the pan of water.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk until homogenous. Add the sugar and whisk until well blended, about 2 minutes. Add the dry ingredients and, still using the whisk, stir (don’t beat) them into the eggs. Little by little, and using a light hand, stir in the melted chocolate and butter. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups and sprinkle the finely chopped chocolate over the batter.

Bake the cakes for 13 minutes. Transfer them, still on the baking sheet, to a rack to cool for 3 minutes. (There is no way to test that these cakes are properly baked, because the inside remains liquid.)

Line a cutting board with a silicone baking mat or parchment or wax paper, and, after the 3-minute rest, unmold the cakes onto the board. Use a wide metal spatula to lift the cakes onto dessert plates.