Chocolate Lava Cakes

The other night I had a sudden urge to make something very yummy (preferable made of chocolate) and my mom completely agreed. So I found myself searching for a recipe on allrecipes.com  for chocolate lava cakes.  I had wanted to make these for quite a while and soon I found a recipe where we had all the ingredients on hand.

• 1/2 cup butter
• 4 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Butter and flour four 4 ounce ramekins or custard cups (or skip all that and use 9-10 cupcake liners like I did).
2. Finely chop the chocolate. In the top half of a double boiler set over simmering water, heat the butter until almost melted then add chocolate.  Stir until almost completely melted.
3. Beat the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together until light colored and thick.
4. Beat together the melted chocolate and butter. While beating, slowly pour the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, then quickly beat in the flour and mix until just combined.
5. Divide the batter between the four molds or 9-10 cupcake liners and bake at 450 degrees F (230 degrees C) for 6 to 7 minutes. The centers of the cakes will still be quite soft. Invert cakes on serving plates and let sit for about 15 seconds, then unmold, or peel off wrapper. Serve immediately with fresh whipped cream and raspberry, if desired.   

These are actually very easy and pretty quick to make but kind of tricky to peel off the cupcake wrappers without chocolate coming out.

Keep Eating... Maddie

Inspiration Walk

You can find inspiration everywhere.  I went on a walk around the neighborhood and took a picture of everything that caught my eye.  It was mostly flowers, but I took a picture of the sky to find out what color it is.

Here are some of the many pictures I took:

 

I also went on a inspiration hunt in my garage (I will post that later)

Hope this inspires you!

Maddie

Lemon Bars

We recently got new neighbors and to welcome them we decided to make them lemon bars (also I wanted to eat them myself, and blog about them).  So I made a double batch and realized I only put enough lemon juice for one recipe. My mom liked them a lot more though because she always thinks they are too lemony. The truth is that the recipe I use calls for fresh lemon juice, but we never have fresh lemons, and the bottled juice brings in too much flavor.  The recipe we use is by Cooks Illustrated (I love their recipes, but they are so complicated sometimes).

 Ingredients:

Crust:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cups confectioners sugar -plus extra for dusting
1/4 cup cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) butter

Filling:
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 teaspoons lemon zest from 2 lemons (optional)
2/3 cup juice from 3 to 4 large lemons (if not using fresh lemon juice, reduce the amount of juice used)
1/3 cup whole milk
1/8 teaspoon salt

Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350.  Grease a 9 x13 pan with butter.  Pulse flour, confectioners sugar, cornstarch and salt in the bowl of a food processor.  Add butter and process for 8 to 10 second in short bursts, till it resembles coarse meal.  Press the dough firmly into the pan.  Refidgerate for 15 to 30 minutes and bake until golden brown about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk the eggs, sugar, and flour in a medium bowl then stir in zest, juice, milk and salt.  Blend well.

Reduce the oven temp to 325. Stir filling to reblend; pour into warm crust.  Bake until filling feels firm when touched lightly, about 20 minutes. Let cool or put in freezer or refridgerator.

Unfortunately for the neighbors (and fortunately for us) I found a piece of plastic in mine and my mom wouldn't let me give lemon bars with plastic in them away.

Balloon Printing

In my other printing post, I told you to look in unexpected places for things to print with.  I found balloons.  All you have to do is blow them up a little bit, about the size of a baseball.  Then rubber band it shut, don't tie it, because then you can use it over again.  Make sure you have a paper towel and baby wipes handy. 

Now get a piece of cardstock or something to paint on.  Pour a bit of paint out and dab the balloon into it.  Get some of the excess paint off by dabbing the balloon on a separate piece of paper. Now have some fun creating cool textured cards.

And here is the finished product.

I added lightning to this to make it look like a storm.  I hope this proves useful!