whine & dine

This seems to be the common trait amongst my friends, all of whom are suddenly offering to drive me around, rent DVDs, buy beer/wine/drinks, lend me software installation discs for the new computer all for one common thing in return – that I cook for them.

I suppose I’m rather flattered that they all think so highly of my food – one friend has even appointed herself Official Leftovers Bin, i.e. after any time I entertain, if there are any leftovers that will keep in the fridge for a day or two, just call her and she’ll come “help us rid our fridge of the leftovers”. It’s just slightly disturbing since it kinda feels like I’ve suddenly befriended a legion of starving refugees.

Anyhoo, after an entire weekend of cooking and entertaining (Vicki on Friday had steak, many potatoes, salad and creme brulee, Bunny’s friends on Saturday had salmon, and Wei came over for a Sunday Roast with Peach and Mozzarella Salad), I’ve finally received demands for one of the recipes, so here we go:

Molten Chocolate Cake (pictured above and here)

Ingredients
6 oz unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
175g unsalted butter, roughly chopped
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
7 (slightly heaped) tbsp castor sugar
6 tbsp plain flour

Method

Melt the butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, stirring, until glossy and smooth. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
Butter 8 3/4-cup ramekins well, and freeze for 5 minutes. Remove from the freezer, butter again and freeze for another 5 minutes. Remove from freezer, dust lightly with flour and store in the refridgerator until needed.
Whisk the eggs, egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes worth of elbow-grease – you can always opt to use an electric mixer).
Add cooled chocolate mixture into egg mixture and mix well until batter is dark brown.
Sift flour into batter and mix until incorporated.
Divide batter evenly among ramekins and refridgerate for at least 2 hours (or overnight).
Call dubby and invite her over to your place.
Before baking, take the ramekins out of the fridge to bring back to room temperature (at least 1 hour). Preheat oven to 200C, and bake for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes, then unmould and serve with vanilla ice cream, a couple of raspberries and a dusting of icing sugar. :)
Share them with your nice friend who typed this recipe out with you.

Note: This recipe was adapted from another one that a friend directed me to.