Molten Chocolate Lava Cake!! in a Microwave!! for ONE!!

it was another sleepless night and i was trawling food blogs (as usual) which made me amazingly hungry (as usual). when i found this recipe i was SO excited~!! i made the conversions, and rushed straight to the kitchen at nearly 3 in the morning to make it. heh. yeah, not good for the waistline, but i was having a baking craving and we all know how that turns out.

don't we?

when i made this recipe, i cooked it a bit too long, and it turned out to be chocolate cake! no photos, cause i was so excited i ate the whole thing in 5 minutes flat (while the log was sleeping). i'm going to do a few flavours tonight, in preparation for making it for my guardian angel, since this is her favourite cake :D

anyway! i'm making this post to record my conversions since the original recipe makes about 6 ramekins' worth.

side note: i found out my ramekins in Perth, along with a lot of other kitchen stuff was thrown away after a flood in a good friend's place. HEARTBROKEN! but i have to move on. and think about my future kitchen and the things i will fill it with!

Adapted from Fun and Food Blog (makes ONE)

one chocolate bar, chopped ( i think dark chocolate would work best, a bar is 43-45 g or 1/2 cup)

same amount of butter, softened a bit and chopped (but i would lessen it by a teaspoon, the trial run was too oily for me)

1 egg (mine is the normal smallish Asian egg :D)

1 teaspoon cocoa powder (i use Van Houten's that i found in the Macau supermarket, i think the flavour is quite good)

1/8 cup granulated sugar (or 2 Tablespoons, i would use less, just guesstimate it)

1/12 cup plain flour (omg really miniscule, 1.3 tablespoon, again, guesstimate, you're not going to serve this at a Michelin restaurant and if you are going to use this recipe, i would guess that you are not some gourmet food critic person :D)

1. Butter your mug. Use a brush or some paper napkin edge and er.."moisten it" with butter then rub the insides of the mug. Melt chopped chocolate in mug (i have a cheapass mug specially for these things, make sure it is microwave safe) on medium in the microwave for about 20 seconds (til it's soft enough to stir around). Add butter, and melt for another 10-15 seconds. Take out and stir. Careful! The mug may get HOT!

2. Beat eggs and sugar until it starts to whiten (according to orginal recipe. i was planning to put it in a small bottle and shake it! :D). Pour into chocolate mixture. Sift flour and cocoa powder together, then add to chocolate mixture. Stir gently to combine. COMBINE! not whip! hehe.

3. Now comes the fun bit! now i don't know what watt is my microwave, i searched high and low and all around it, but i didn't see anything. but what i did on the trial was to use the Medium setting, and microwaved for 2 minutes. 

what i did wrong was 

1. i covered it. so about 1 minute 10 seconds into the cooking process, i could see the cover start to rise above the mug! i'm a baking noob, i didn't know plain flour could rise that much! i stopped the microwave, took the plate off and let it continue to cook for another minute. 

2. That last sentence was another mistake. I'm going to try for 1 minute 30 seconds later. this is the original tip from the blog:

"Touch the top of the cake with your finger. When done, you should be able to press down slightly on the cake and have it spring back but when you insert a toothpick into the cake, the toothpick should come out with wet batter on it. The trick is to cook the cakes as little as possible for a liquid center yet long enough that a firm cake-like exterior forms that won't fall apart when you take it out of the pan."

So! good luck to me later tonight! :))