When did it get to be Wednesday?

It probably happened when I wasn't paying attention. I've been busy with so many things- I'm putting the finish touches on my new dress, baking some molten lava cakes for my Dad's birthday, and going on so many adventures! Including going to NYC next week to visit some of my favorite people!! But to make up for my lacking blog-post yesterday, I'll regale you with my molten-lava-cake adventure!

We have no chocolate in the house, because my mother an I are fiends for chocolate. My mother loves baking chocolate especially, while I prefer my chocolate to be no higher than 65%. Almost every recipe I've found for lava cake requires dark chocolate, which we've of course finished off. With no respective way of getting to the grocery story, we turned to the internet in search of a recipe that called for cocoa powder instead of chocolate. And with luck, we found this recipe! 

So we gathered our ingredients:

8T (1 stick) Butter

1/3 c + 9T sugar

3/4c unsweetened natural cocoa

1/4tsp salt

1/3c all purpose flour

1 tsp. vanilla

As a note on the ingredients- all white sugar that is not labeled organic is not vegan or vegetarian. It's run through a bone charcoal when it's being refined. Our family has been vegetarian for over 12 years now, and last summer I worked in a vegan bakery which is where I learned all this! But continuing on, all of our cocoa is fairtrade and organic is well, to read more on fair trade you should take a look here! The salt we used was sea salt and our vanilla is homemade! I've left you the recipe for it at the end of this post!

So, first you preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Then take a muffin tin and butter 5-6 of the cups, and coat them with those 9T of sugar! You then whisk together the butter and cocoa powder in one bowl, and in another whisk the eggs and sugar until foamy. Gently mix the two together. Then add the flour and salt, stirring the mixture well. Divide bewtween the muffin cups, making them almost full. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the centers are stiff and not jiggly when touched. But don't overbake! Because then these tasty morsels are really just muffin shaped brownies. Serve up with some icecream or whipped cream and enjoy! 

xoxo

My Momma's Homemade Vanilla Recipe

2 vanilla beans, sliced lengthwise in half

1 liter bottle of your favorite Rum or Vodka (she uses dark rum) make sure the flavor of the rum isn't too strong or it'll mask the vanilla flavor!

Place sliced vanilla beans in bottle and let sit for 2-3 months and viola! Your vanilla is ready for use!