Salted Caramel Lava Cake, where have you been all my life?

Ingredients

4 oz of semi-sweet baking chocolate squares [113 grams]

4 oz of butter [1 stick or 113 grams]

1/3 cup of sugar or icing sugar 

2  large eggs

1/3 cup A P flour [All purpose white flour]

Some butter for greasing 4 ramekins

6-8 caramel squares

a little rock salt/sea salt

100% cocoa powder for dusting ramekins, optional

Preparation

Preheat oven to 425 deg [218 deg celsius]

Butter the ramekins. Dust with cocoa powder[optional]

Cut each caramel square into a few smaller pieces and press some salt onto them and set aside. If you leave them whole they might not melt all the way through.

Microwave the chocolate squares and butter for one minute in a large bowl. The chocolate will not have completely melted at this point. Whisk till the chocolate and butter combine.

Add the sugar and mix it in.

Whisk in the eggs and incorporate.

Stir in the flour. Work the flour in gently to combine. 

Divide batter among the 4 ramekins.

Gently push the salted caramel bits into the batter covering them.

Place ramekins on a cookie sheet and bake between 10-14 minutes. The cake is ready when it has a domed appearance, the center is a little moist and the edges of the cake, dry and firm.                                                                                                                                                                                                       Remove from the oven, insert a knife and go around the cake, invert onto serving plates, garnish wth salt and serve.                                                                                                

Notes

• This is a very forgiving recipe and you can’t go wrong with this cake. Please do keep this in your repetoire. For very little time and effort you get outstanding results each and every time.
• You can make the batter ahead of time and refrigerate it. I’ve baked it after 3 three days. Not necessary to get to room temperature, just leave it out for a little while. You can even put it in a prepared ramekin, refrigerate and bake directly after you have set it out for a little bit.
• You can freeze the batter. Thaw and bake. You can also freeze in prepared ramekins, then thaw and bake, though the cake didn’t rise as much.            
• You can spike it with liquor.                                                                          
• If you have left the cake in the oven for a bit too long, it might not have a runny center but the inside will still be moist and fudgy and still yummy.
• The same recipe bakes equally well in a mini muffin pan. I set the temperature to 350 degrees [180degrees celcius] and baked for 10-12 minutes.                           
• For a chocolate lava cake, just omit the caramel squares.             

[vegetarianirvana]