Chocolate Lava Cake
Chocolate Lava Cake with Strawberries
as it turned out, i subsequently made very good tofu cheese cake, tiramisu, banoffee cake & pumpkin cheese cake, so i have not made the lava cake for a while. i also tried a jam crumb cake which was pretty ok too.
I am generally NOT a dessert person. When dining out with family or friends, I will take the lower cost 2-course option (for set meals) & pick an appetizer & main, ostensibly also to avoid too much calories.
I also have NOT baked in my entire life before this, and in any case I only started any form of serious exploring of cooking from Mar2012 when I had my first 5-course home cooked dinner for friends.
It was in August 2012 after a very nice smoked meat dinner at a friend’s place, where some friends brought along a very nice tiramisu cake, that I started then to google for some dessert I can make. Well I found one which I now do rather well – the oozing chocolate lava cake. But I must say that I am both NOT motivated and luckless in finding another “worthwhile” dessert to make (worthwhile being that there is a “wow” factor in producing it & it is nearly as good or better than what you can grab from a good bakery stall). I can make a passable apple pie now but does not quite meet my “worthwhile” criteria. I had been looking at soufle recipes for a while and hopefully that would be the subject of my post in the not too distant future.
Back to the oozing chocolate lava cake. I was successful in my 3rd attempt, and thanks to Facebook for being such a faithful repository of memories, that was on 22.8.2012!
success at 3rd try!
chocolate lava cake oozing lava @ home 0n 22.8.2012
Well, now I can make an awesome chocolate lava cake 99% of the time successful. It is NOT really as good as some very good ones in restaurants here but still equal or better than many.
The keys to a good chocolate lava cake are (1) taste & (2) lava; otherwise it will be just a good tasting brownie! I find the 70% cocoa chocolate makes the lava cake flavour really mesmerising. I have tried Cadbury Old Gold Dark Chocolate but w/o the cocoa the taste experience is several notch down, so if you do you will need to experiment with adding cocoa to get to the right taste. For the lava, the size of the muffin tray (I still do not have ramekins!), temperature & timing are CRITICAL; and because in this recipe the time is only 3mins 30secs, any variation & you will have to trial & error to get the correct combination. For example, I have to use the grill function at 210degC in order that the top hardens while inside is still molten & let the bottom harden further while resting for few minutes!
c.h.e.f andy
Ingredients:
- Cadbury Old Gold chocolate 70% cocoa 100g (1/2 bar)
- unsalted butter 100g (0.4x250g bar)
- sugar 1 tbsp flat
- normal flour a tbsp flat & sifted
- 3 eggs + 2 eggyolk
Directions:
- beat egg & sugar
- add in flour & beat (steps 1 & 2 can do together)
- melt butter & chocolate (on top) in microwave 70-80seconds & beat
- then add slowly to egg mixture (so egg won’t be cooked as chocolate slightly warm) & beat
- use butter cube to grease thoroughly each cup of 6 cup small muffin tray & fill up 70% with the chocolate mix
- preheat oven to 210degC and put to grill/broil function
- place muffin tray in preheated oven – use phone to time 3mins 15secs & remove immediately
- leave muffin tray for few minutes for bottom (top when inverted) to harden
- invert & serve the chocolate lava cake with a nice ice-cream or strawberries
Protected: “Best Of” Dinner on 28Jan2013
Skin-on Pan-roasted Brined Chicken Breast
skin-on pan-roasted brined chicken breast
I first heard about brining from a friend wei (must give credit where credit is due..haha!) some 7 months back when she invited a few of us for a homecooked lunch of (you guessed it!) roasted brined spatchcock, GR (Gordon Ramsay) crackling belly pork, roasted pumpkin/tomatoes/onions & focaccia etc.
At the time I was doing a rather nice but boring oven roast chicken the usual way of rubbing with a marinate of seasalt, pepper, herbs (rosemary, basil, parsley flakes etc) and pushing whole cloves of garlic under the skin & putting it to the oven. So I was reading about brining for interest but has yet to find much use for it.
see here for a good read about brining.
Then I came across a super video recipe for this skin-on pan-roasted brined chicken breast & tried it on New Year Eve 31.12.2012 & it worked beautifully. I have since done it a few times & it unfailingly produces the best moist, tender, tasty chicken breast. I cooked it for the CNY (Chinese New Year) 3rd Day gathering of 14 hungry 19-year olds for Su Lin, my youngest daughter & the youngsters all loved the chicken; and I might add also the belly pork, pasta & angus beef steak!
I have gone on and tried the recipe on chicken drumstick (I have to agree with Su Lin that I actually like the drumstick even better) and also varied the recipe on duck breast & drumstick – here both are very good but the brined duck breast is just, just SENSATIONAL!
pan-roasted brined chicken drumstick
and here is the video recipe.
c.h.e.f andy
Ingredients:
- 2xchicken breasts with wingstick (I use a 1.4kg chicken from Sheng Shiong or Giant hypermarket)
- 1 litre water
- 5% salt (about 50g)
- 3% sugar (about 30g)
- 5 limes (or about 30ml bottled lime juice)
Directions:
- Preparing the chicken breasts with wingstick – use kitchen scissors to cut chicken in 1/2, then cut around the drumstick into 1/4 (breast with wingstick & drumstick quarters), then cut away & remove the bones under the breast completely, then cut away the fat, wash & clean
- Brining – add 1 litre water in a large plastic container, mix in about 3 heap tablespoon salt & 2 heap tablespoon sugar & stir to dissolve, then pour in 30ml bottled lime juice or squeeze juice from about 5 limes. Put 2x cleaned chicken breasts with wingstick into the container and place container in fridge for 24hours. Remove & wash chicken breasts thoroughly in slow running water & place on a rack to airdry in fridge for 24hrs (can also skip this step & dry with kitchen towels)
- Cooking – Remove chicken breasts from fridge & leave it at room temperature for at least 1/2hr. Heat oven-proof non-stick pan on high heat, add olive oil to grease pan & turn to medium heat. Place the chicken breasts 1 at a time skin-down in hot pan & fry for 4minutes to get crispy skin. The oil will sputter a bit, turn to low heat after 1 minute. Preheat oven to 250degC. Place oven-proof pan in oven & let the chicken cook for 10minutes. Remove pan from oven & remove chicken breasts from pan immediately & let them rest for 10 minutes, Serve.
I am NO chef!
SORRY GUYS!
chefandy is NOT a chef’s blog! I am NO chef!
The only reference to “chef” you will find in this blog will be to the great chefs who I pick & learn my internet & video recipes from.
c.h.e.f stands for cook.hangout.eat.fun
I cook, somewhat belatedly in life I must add but in time to discover that I am really liking it (hohoho! so I am now an ardous advocate of better late than never!), and maybe because I have nothing better to do (haha! just being self-deprecating – learning to laugh at myself – a good habit that does no harm to ego or prestige).
The journey probably started on 12.3.2012, when I invited 10 friends for homecooked dinner. Looking back at the photos of the 5 dishes I did then, I am truly a lucky bloke to have all these indulgent & risk taker friends – if it were me, I probably won’t care much to be invited again. haha! anyway, that will be story & photos enough for another post.
see also why i blog & my guidelines & perspectives.
c.h.e.f andy
