TWD: Gooey Chocolate Cakes

When this week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe was announced for Gooey Chocolate Cakes I was very excited. I made something quite similar a few months ago when we had my sister-in-law and her boyfriend over for dinner. I remembered my husband loving it and wanting more, but the recipe had only made 4.

He was in luck this time since Dorie's recipe makes 6 and company wasn't coming! These came out delicious. I added 2 tablespoons of cooled brewed coffee in the last mixing step to put a little different spin on the flavor. This may have been why my Gooey Chocolate Cakes puffed up and over the top of the muffin tin a bit - sort of to resemble a muffin, either that or I simply overfilled the muffin cups. Dorie suggests buying an aluminum disposable 6 cup muffin tin but I have a 6 cup muffin tin already so decided to just use that, but maybe it wasn't deep enough. Either way, it really doesn't matter a whole lot since once you flipped these over to serve it wasn't all that noticeable and they tasted great! I'm happy that this TWD go-around came out more successfully than the last i.e. my Caramel Topped Flan that...well...doesn't look like it's topped with caramel at all.

You win some, you lose some. Luckily I won this one!


Gooey Chocolate Cakes

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.