Chocolate Soup

Following directions or recipes is not one of my strong suits, and for good reason too. Usually when I follow the directions of a recipe, the recipe doesn’t turn out. I don’t know why that is, but it happens more so than not. Hence, I usually make up my own rules and do my own thing, and most of the time, things turn out just as I was hoping and expecting. This was most certainly the case when I tried to make Keto friendly chocolate lava cakes. I am not all that well versed in cooking the Keto style, so I was really trying to follow the recipe, and hopefully learn something new. Well, I followed the recipe to a “T” and it did NOT work. My lava cakes did not turn out as lava cakes, but came out as chocolate soup instead.

We went out to dinner with our friends Eric and Shannon and they came over here for dessert after. They are following a Keto diet, which I have to admit I do not know that much about. So I did my research to find a good dessert that was Keto friendly. I found a recipe for a Keto friendly chocolate lava cakes that sounded just perfect. Better yet, I already had all the ingredients necessary. I thought to myself, “Great! This will be great for dessert”. Everything was going according to plan until …….

Here is the recipe I found. Obviously, I still need to tweak it and work with it, but if you can make it work for you, I give you a round of applause.

Keto Friendly Individual Chocolate Lava Cakes

This recipe was made as an individual recipe, so instead of making just 1, I multiplied everything by 4 so the 4 of us could “enjoy” it. That should not have made a difference though. Believe it or not, I am very good at math, and I definitely know how to multiply things by a factor of 4. I will give you the individual recipe for 1, as I found it.

1 TBSP butter

3 TBSP almond flour

1 TBSP cocoa powder

2 TBSP sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 egg beaten

1/2 tsp vanilla

4 squares of baking chocolate

Melt the butter in the ramekin in a microwave for about 10-20 seconds and swirl it all around to coat the ramekin completely.

Combine all the dry ingredients and blend together thoroughly.

Mix the eggs and the vanilla together and beat slightly. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and mix everything together until it is incorporated and you have a thick batter.

Fill the ramekin about 1/2 way and add the baking chocolate, then fill the ramekin with more batter. Fill the ramekin to about 3/4 full.

This recipe can either be microwaved or baked in the oven. If you are using the microwave, cook it at high for about 1 minute. If you are placing it in the oven, bake it at 350* F or 180* C for 10 minutes, or until the outer edges are set. You do not want to over cook it because the “lava” will set and will not flow. Up to this point, everything was perfect. No problems at all. The top of my cake was like a cake should be, and was set. The edges were as they were supposed to be too. They look just like they are supposed to right?

Once I removed the ramekins from the oven, I quickly turned them over on to a plate, like I was supposed to do. But instead of having a beautiful lava cake, the result I got was chocolate soup. It was a big ooey-gooey mess. The cake did NOT set at all. But being the ever creative and inventive one that I am, all was not a complete loss. Since the tops came out the way they were supposed to, I salvaged them and topped them with a dab of ice cream and served the orange slices and strawberries on the side, like I was planning on anyway. It actually worked out pretty well, all things considered, since we were all pretty full from dinner.

I am sharing my mishaps with you to let you know you are NOT alone. I have gremlins in my kitchen too. Even I, Jeanne, from “A Jeanne in the Kitchen” have those days when things just don’t turn out as expected or hoped. The moral of the story …. Don’t follow the recipes. Tweak them however you need to. 🙂

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.