Who doesn’t get fascinated by some seriously dark chocolate cake with hot melting ooey gooey chocolate centre? Add some peanut butter and a dash of espresso coffee, it fulfils your chocolate cravings to another level of gratification. Exactly this is what happened when I bake these decadent espresso peanut butter choco lava cakes a couple of days back. It was raining heavily and I was craving for some warm indulgent chocolate treat. I have had tried store brought chocolate lava cakes a couple of times before, but none of them could get to the mark of being called a good chocolate cake. I found them cloyingly sweet and lacking a good amount of dark chocolate flavour. But you know, this is where a good home baked chocolate cake saves the day. Because you have quality ingredients to play with. Some very good dark chocolate high on cocoa percentage is really you need to make this moreish chocolate lave cakes. They sound intimidating to deal with, but trust me on this. You’d get some professionally looking as well as deliciously tasting chocolate cakes. And these could be a surprise show stopper at your next dinner party. Serve them warm with a dusting of cocoa powder and a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.
- 200 gm dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), chopped
- 100 gm butter, chopped
- 2 eggs
- 2 egg yolks, extra
- 100 gm caster (superfine) sugar
- 35 gm plain flour, sifted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp instant espresso powder
- 4 tbsp smooth peanut butter
- Cocoa, for dusting
- Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Grease 4 1-cup capacity pudding moulds with butter and dust with cocoa powder.
- Place the chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat and stir until the chocolate and butter are melted and smooth.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla extract and espresso powder. Mix in chocolate mixture. Fold in plain flour and stir to combine gently.
- Spoon the mixture into prepared pudding moulds until it fills halfway. Drop in 1 tbsp peanut butter in the centre of each mould. Spoon the remaining chocolate batter on top of peanut butter, until just covered.
- Place moulds on a baking tray and bake for about 16-18 minutes.
- Gently turn out the cakes from moulds and dust with cocoa powder.
Beautifully captured, as always!