Chocolate Lava Cakes

By Food Network

Go ahead and indulge in these perfectly rich and dreamy chocolate lava cakes! Bittersweet chocolate and espresso powder create a luscious and balanced batter that stays molten in the center during baking. Delicious served alone, with ice cream, or with a berry compote .

Ingredients

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus 1 tablespoon, melted

1/4 cup sugar, plus more for coating the ramekins

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 large eggs, plus 2 large egg yolks

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Brush four 6-ounce ramekins with the melted butter and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet.

3. Combine the chocolate and butter in a medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each with a rubber spatula until completely melted and smooth, about 1 1/2 minutes total. Add the vanilla, espresso powder and salt into the chocolate mixture and stir to combine.

4. Add the eggs, egg yolks and 1/4 cup sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk on medium-high until fluffy and pale, about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes.

5. With the mixer on low, add the chocolate mixture to the egg mixture, mixing until just combined. Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and gently fold in the flour using a rubber spatula.

6. Divide the batter equally among the 4 prepared ramekins. Bake until the sides are firm but the centers are still soft, 12 to 14 minutes. (A cake tester inserted into the center of each cake should not come out clean.) Do not overbake.

7. Let the cakes cool for 1 minute. Invert onto serving plates and serve warm.

Recipe Websites

Food Network: This website has clear instructions and is very easy to navigate. I like the columns that make it easy to see the ingredients and steps to make the recipe. I also like the design decision of making the directions have large numbers in front of them.

Simply Recipes: I enjoy the design of Simply Recipes-- It is very clean and the colors compliment it well. It is also well laid out and relies on pictures to navigate the website. However, I like the design of the homepage more than the recipe pages because the recipe pages appear more cluttered with text and ads than the homepage.

Yummly: Yummly has my favorite layout of the recipe pages that I have found thus far. It is very simply laid out with a clean design. I also like how the ingredients are easy to see at the top of the page instead of long description before the recipe as seen on Simply Recipes.

Non-Recipe Websites

Glossier: I like how this website is so cleanly but also playfully laid out to highlight the products. Also, the pictures coordinate to eachother and to the website as a whole well. I would like to take inspiration from this website by designing a clean website that lets the pictures of the food to be the focus.

Outdoor Voices: I think Outdoor Voices does a great job with typography in particular on their website. They stay very consistent with a particular brand image through their entire website. I would like to adopt a similar consistency throughout my website.

ban.do: I love this colorful and playful yet well functioning website. I would like to play with color and typography in a similar way that ban.do does.

Sample Imagery