Peanut Butter and Chocolate Lava Cakes

My youngest daughter cannot eat chocolate, so I rarely make things that contain it. However, while the cat is away, the mice will eat chocolate. When my sister-in-law was here, we decided to try out Peanut Butter Chocolate Lava Cakes while said daughter was still in school. It seemed imperative that we should conduct this trial – “in the name of science”, as E put it. We tried to make just two portions, but made three in the end, so I had a chance to see how the dessert would reheat at a later time. “Extremely well” is the answer to that query.

Here is what we did. (She likes to weigh, and I tend to use cup measures, so this recipe turned out to be a mix of both!) Variety keeps us young?

50 g butter
100g dark chocolate, chopped

Melt the chocolate and butter over low heat. Stir until they are shiny and well combined. Cool slightly while preparing the rest.

Butter the bottom and sides of 3 ramekins, and place a circle of parchment in each one. I butter that as well to make it easy to remove from the cake. (After baking, the sides are easy to loosen in the dish, but the parchment makes it easy to release the bottom of the cake as well.)

1 egg, plus 1 yolk
1/4 cup sugar

Whisk the sugar, egg and yolk together.

2 Tbsp. flour
1/4 cup peanut butter

Add the flour and the chocolate to the eggs. Divide batter in half. Evenly portion the first half into the three ramekins. To each one, add a spoon of peanut butter in a mound in the center of the dish.

Use the second half of the batter to form a top layer in each of the three ramekins, covering the peanut butter. Place ramekins on a baking tray in case of overflow.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven for 16-18 minutes. Loosen edges of cake around the ramekin and turn out onto a plate. Remove the parchment paper. Cut in and let the lava flow!

I thought the next time I make these, I would put half a spoon of peanut butter and half a spoon of Nutella in the middle. Peanut and chocolate dreams….