Valentine's Day Chocolate Cake

Mark insisted I talk about last night's dinner. We originally planned to try Meritage downtown St. Paul for Valentine's Day, but decided we'd better not stray from marathon training. We'll head to Meritage tomorrow instead. After an easy 40-minute run at the Y in Eagan, we headed home, cleaned up, and started up the grill. Ah, winter grilling. Only serious Minnesotans go out in 5 degree weather to prep their favorite cut of meat. Mark brushed the snow off the grill, added some extra briquettes for good measure, and grilled us a great ribeye. I sliced up some Yukon Golds over my lunch break with butter and rosemary I had in the freezer from last summer's garden. We also baked some ciabatta rolls from New French Bakery. And then, we arrived at dessert . . . a last-minute addition to the meal. I found a box of Baker's bittersweet chocolate in the cupboard. One of those ingredients I bought for a specific recipe that I never ended up making. I opened the box and found their recipe for Molten Chocolate Cakes. I used my clay glazed muffin bakers, but you can use any type of custard cup. The recipe says it makes 6, but mine made 5. 

Dark Molten Chocolate Cakes 

6 squares BAKER'S Bittersweet Baking Chocolate 

10 Tbsp. butter 

1-1/2 cups powdered sugar 

1/2 cup flour 

3 whole eggs 

3 egg yolks 

425°F 

Grease custard cups & place on baking sheet. 

Microwave chocolate and butter in large bowl on MEDIUM (or on full blast because you neglected to read this part of the recipe like I did) 2 min. or until butter is melted. 

 Stir with wire whisk until chocolate is completely melted. 

 Add sugar and flour; mix well. 

 Add whole eggs and egg yolks; beat until well blended. 

Divide batter evenly into custard cups. 

BAKE 14 - 15 min. or until cakes are firm around the edges but still soft in the centers.

Let stand for 1 minute. Run small knife around cakes to loosen. 

Carefully invert cakes onto dessert dishes.

The chocolate just oozes out from the warm little cakes. They're a perfect serving size. We had them with fresh strawberries.