Snacks / eggs
Ultimate Molten Chocolate Cake
I am in love with this flourless chocolate cake recipe from Food52 by Sarah Jampel — it's super rich dark chocolate cake with an amazingly light texture and a molten top layer of lava like chocolate. Yes, you read correctly, this cake frosts itself. Can your chocolate cake do that?! Sure, it's delightful with the addition of fresh berries and whipped cream, but this cake can stand all on it's own.
The list of ingredients is short and sweet – but not too sweet – with that richness from the chocolate and butter, there's no need to add much else. I made a few minor changes to Sarah's recipe, swapping out sugar for honey, and halving the amount. I also added a bit of cream of tartar to the egg whites, so they whip up without the sugar.
With so few ingredients, this cake is really all about the magic of baking — separating the eggs and putting them back together, and adding chocolate along the way. You make a fluffy, soupy mess and turn it into divine chocolate cake. You will need a few hours — to assemble, bake, cool and bake again, and it's well worth the time.
Here's a photo of the finished cake, from Food52 photographer Julia Gartland, as mine was eaten completely before I thought to take a photo. It really was that good!
Ingredients for one 9 inch cake:
- 1/2 pound bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
- 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 pinch salt
- 7 large eggs, separated
- 3/4 cup raw honey or more to taste, I'd use no more than 1 cup total.
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
Sarah's Method:
- Preheat the oven to 350° F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Butter the paper.
- In a large saucepan over low heat, melt the chopped chocolate and the butter. Add the cocoa powder and a pinch of salt whisk until smooth. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a medium bowl using an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks with all the honey until pale and light, about 3 minutes. Set aside.
- In another bowl, using clean beaters, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until the whites are firm and glossy.
- Fold the chocolate into the egg yolk mixture until barely combined. Fold in the egg whites just until no white streaks remain.
- Spoon 2 cups of the batter into a measuring cup and refrigerate—this will become your chocolate lave topping.
- Scrape the remaining batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the cake is puffed and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool the cake completely on a wire rack. Don't panic if the sides of your cake has pulled away from the pan and the center is a bit sunken. This is a crater into which you will pull the reserved batter. At this point, you can cover the cake and refrigerate for up to 2 days.
- Remove the belt/girdle of the completely cool springform pan and spread the reserved cake batter over the top of the cake (it will be thick, so be gentle), leaving a 1-inch border around the edge. Refrigerate the cake for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 400° F. Bake the cake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until a thin crust forms on top and the batter is soft and creamy beneath the crust.
- Let the cake cool for 10 minutes, then cut into wedges and serve warm. To store, cover the cooled cake in plastic wrap and keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. The pudding-like top will become delightfully mousse-y.
A Better Chocolate Chip Cookie
I love cookies. I will admit to having eaten entire batches not long after baking them, while forgoing other, more nutritious foods. Not many of us are immune to the sweet, crunchy, chewy qualities of a great cookie, or ten. However, I’ve read in more than a few places that wheat and sugar (aka the building blocks of most cookie recipes) can be more addictive than cocaine and cause intense cravings, among other negative side effects. Google ‘sugar and cocaine’ or ‘wheat as an opiate’ if you don’t believe me! Maybe you, like me, have already noticed how awful you feel after eating too much sugar or wheat based junk foods. The foods we consume are strong substances, that can support our health or not. With all the extras that this season brings, it's as important as ever to be aware of what we consume. I'm not going to suggest that you skip all baked goods this month, or quit them all together because that's an entirely unreasonable request. Instead, try what I’ve been doing and switch up your ingredients- use almond, coconut and/or oat flour in place of wheat. Try some sweeteners that have health benefits like raw honey, molasses and stevia, a natural, calorie free, plant based sweetener. With a little effort you can bake a healthier cookie. One that you won’t regret eating an entire batch of, if that’s your style.
These Better Chocolate Chip Cookies are a modification (just a few changes) to the Almond Joy Oatmeal Cookie on RunningWithSpoons.com (because you can't eat with scissors) by Amanda, a health coach. There's minimal added sugars and plenty of sweet flavor from coconut flakes, dark chocolate chips, honey and pecans. By combining a small amount of glycerine based stevia, which can have a bitter aftertaste on it’s own, with a few tablespoons of a very flavorful sweetener, like honey, you get the best of both, a sweet tasting cookie, no bitter aftertaste and no sugar rush/crash/cravings! There's no wheat flour in this gluten free recipe, instead, I used chewy whole oats and almond flour. While I still wouldn't call these a health food, they are certainly made with many healthy, whole foods. Enjoy!
Organic Ingredients:
-
¾ cup whole oats
-
¾ cup almond meal/flour
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¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
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½ tsp. baking powder
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¼ tsp. salt
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1 ½ dropperful liquid vanilla stevia OR 1-3 Tablespoons coconut sugar – to taste
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2 Tbsp. raw honey
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1 egg, lightly beaten
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2 Tbsp. coconut oil, melted
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½ tsp. vanilla extract
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¼ cup dark chocolate chunks/chips
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¼ cup toasted pecan pieces
Method:
Combine the first 5 dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
In another bowl, whisk the egg, then whisk in the melted (but not too hot, you don’t want to cook the eggs!) coconut oil, vanilla, honey and stevia OR coconut sugar.
Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture and mix to combine. Fold in the chocolate chips and pecan pieces.
Pre-heat oven to 350 and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
I used a 1 tablespoon scoop, then flattened each half moon of dough with my hand.
Bake for 9-13 minutes, until the cookies are starting to brown around the edges, and set in the middle. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack.
Makes about 15 cookies.
