Celia Wakefield's Lava Cakes

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: As many of you know, our dear Celia is in treatment for cancer, which means at times she's not feeling up to writing. (I often feel that way, and I don't even have any health excuse!) We're just after Valentines Day, and Fat Tuesday will be here in just a few days, so I went back into the archives to bring up a rich, indulgent, chocolate recipe, perfect for rounding out a romantic interlude or celebrating before the start of Lent. 

I hope you'll enjoy this rerun, and be inspired to tackle these delicious Lava Cakes. I'm sure Celia will be popping into the comments if she has the energy, so feel free to leave her a message!

 

 

You may remember Celia's delicious, impressive and easy summer dinner. Her lava cakes are the same way. It's a scrumptious 'restaurant' kind of dessert, but it turns out the only special thing you need to have on hand is not that special - individual ramekins. I got a set of six for $6 at Dollar  Tree, and you can probably find deals as good at the Christmas Tree Store. (Why do they have so much stuff unrelated to Christmas? I have no idea. But I've found it's a great place for low-cost glassware and, surprisingly, lamps.)

Celia suggests doing each step all the way through, and don't try to do more than one  thing at a time. To that I can add, focus, focus, focus. The second time she made this when I was a dinner guest, I was in the kitchen "helping" (ie, we were both talking nonstop and enjoying rather stiff drinks) and the inner part of the cake didn't remain gushy. This is a recipe that demands strict attention to the measurements and mixing. Celia is British, so she even includes grams for our Canadian and continental readers.

Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes For Two

These Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes for Two are the perfect small batch dessert! These lava cakes are incredibly easy to make and ready in less than 30 minutes. I found that the mix would fill three ramekins and still be a good size. This recipe can be doubled for 6 people.

 Prep Time10 minutes

 Cook Time  10 -14 minutes (at 10 minutes start checking)

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup (60 grams) unsalted butter
2 ounces semi-sweet or bitter chocolate chips

1/2 cup (60 grams) powdered sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup (32 grams) all-purpose flour - spoon out then level
1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Spray two or three 6-ounce ramekins well with nonstick cooking spray and place on a baking sheet. Set aside.

Cut the butter into pieces, and add with the chocolate to a large microwave safe bowl (Pyrex or other glass works well).

Microwave in 30 second increments, making sure to stir well after each increment, until melted and smooth. (Do not over cook, recommend taking out after 30 seconds and working the chocolate into the butter with a spatula. It’s a better result for the chocolate).

Whisk the powdered sugar  into the chocolate / butter mixture until well combined.  Mix the eggs and vanilla together, then fold gently into the chocolate mixture until  combined.

Fold in the flour and espresso powder gently; do NOT over mix the batter. Evenly divide the batter between the prepared ramekins.

Bake at 425° for 12-14 minutes or until the edges are firm and the center is slightly soft (the center should look soft and won’t rise). 

Remove from the oven and allow to stand for a minute. Cover the ramekin with a small plate or bowl and invert. Careful, the ramekin is very hot. Add whipped cream or ice cream, serve, and enjoy!

Celebrate Spring with a Blueberry and Lemon Curd Pavlova: Celia Wakefield

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Once more, ladies and gentlemen, our own Celia Wakefield is here with an elegant, (relatively) easy dessert that will wow your guests and tastes like spring sunshine exploding in your mouth.

 

Good morning JRW’s and JRR all, it is such a pleasure to be back with you, and my grateful thanks to Julia et al for encouraging me to write more. As I am over my three score and ten, I am a little late to take up fiction or biography but memoir through food is most enjoyable.

 

I had lots of ideas to talk about but was side tracked by Hanks “Mystery in the Freeza!” The title alone along with the photo was enough to spur my imagination. Hank’s original photo when compared with liver in my own freezer certainly didn’t look anything like blueberries. I mourn with Hank the loss of those precious berries, particularly if she picked them herself. However, while I left it to the Facebook world telling her how to tackle freezing blueberries, not to mention what not to do.  But I have blueberry stories too.

 

Our first house in Chappaqua had a peculiar structure in the back yard. About 10ft by 10 by 10 with netting surrounding some bushes. I thought to myself, ‘well that’s coming down when we move in’. The previous owners were a pleasant couple who invited us for coffee and pie. This pie was a dark blue purple color like no fruit that I had ever seen in England or anywhere else that I had lived. I took the slice offered and cautiously bit into it. How delightful, so sweet and juicy and tangy and quite different from the berries I was used to eating. I asked what the fruit was and they pointed to the cage in the yard. Blueberries, high bush blueberries and in full fruit as it was summer. OK, we kept the cage but I really didn’t appreciate what we had. I would go in and pick 8 cups for a wonderful Gourmet Magazine recipe I found which Victor loved. Unfortunately that recipe has joined the great lost recipe raft somewhere.

However the opportunity to pick our blueberries turned out to be a most popular offering at local fund raising auctions. I think the top weight picked was twenty plus pounds of fruit. I’m sure I must have frozen some for us probably with the same result as Hank. But it wasn’t until we moved to Maine and bid our bushes goodbye that I really started to appreciate blueberries and what we had in Chappaqua despite the year battle with birds. Maine is a blueberry capital and while I don’t chose to crawl around picking the wild blueberries, we do have wonderful places to pick high bush around where we live.

 

I bring the blueberries home and freeze them on a cookie sheet. I don’t wash them. Really, most local farms don’t spray the fruits and we have had no problems. Once frozen and  then bagged, (this part is important to do at speed as they defrost very fast,) I’m set for the next step. I think you all make pies, muffins, scones, blueberry loaves and other baked goodies. I like to turn frozen blueberries into smoothies, just with a banana and some yogurt, or make blueberry sauce which is very like making blueberry jelly but you don’t have to get it to a set point (reached by testing its consistency after 20 minutes of hard boiling.) Store it in the fridge and there it is ready to pour over ice cream, pancakes or French toast.

 

Somehow I found myself hosting a small luncheon party on Easter Day. I needed a meal plan and found that my on-line grocer Big Tree Foods, was offering a par-cooked leg of lamb and some special potato dish and all I had to do is heat them and serve. But what about a dessert? I had saved a lovely article by Dorie Greenspan who has a new blog, xoxo Dorie which is all about baking for which she is famous. The article was about a shop in Paris where she lives part time, which sells only citrus fruits. You must read the article, I was amazed by the splendid choices of fruit. To go with the article, Dorie gave a recipe for lemon curd. I love lemon curd and the recipe looked very easy. Realizing I had not put in a recipe yet, what would be nicer than lemon and blueberries in an Easter dessert. I chose to make a blueberry lemon pavlova. Looking back we had a JRW pavlova recipe on March 28th 2021. You can follow the pavlova recipe for the shell or you can use another recipe for your shell or cake base. I made lemon curd from Dorie Greenspan's recipe as what I loved was its simplicity. And it works.

 

However I added a little hack. My days of play dough and other doughs are over and the idea of massaging the sugar and lemon zest didn’t appeal. Why not try my Cuisinart? I do encourage you to go to Dorie’s blog, first to look at the glorious photos and also to read her directions. I have put in a cut down version below but the recipe is hers, I am just trying to keep my fingers clean.

 

MY HACK

 

- Zest the lemons and combine with 1 1/4C of sugar

I measured the sugar and zested lemon into the Cuisinart bowl.

 

- Break 4 large eggs into a second bowl.

 

- Squeeze enough citrus to measure 3/4C

Prepared my citrus using 1 1/2 Meyer lemons, 3 regular lemons, 1/4 cup lime juice. This was squeezed into yet another bowl taking care not to allow pips into the juice.

 

- Cut 1 stick of softened butter into small cubes.

 

DIRECTIONS:

First whirl the sugar and zest until it’s all incorporated, then pour in the eggs with the processor still going.

The next step involves some dexterity so pour the juice down the funnel and add the butter.

Switch your processor to PULSE and pulse it for a couple of minutes until the mix looks reasonably incorporated. Dorie has great directions.

Pour into a heavy saucepan, whisking all the while until bubbles appears, and suddenly, just like MAGIC, the mix thickens as you remove the pan from the heat and pour into a glass bowl covering with plastic wrap.

 

FINISH

Unwrap the pavlova, and spread a layer of lemon curd over the base generously.

Cover with blueberries and whipped cream.

And the moral is don’t toss the bag of mystery food from the bottom of the freezer until you find out if there is really treasure inside it. Hank’s bag - blueberry syrup possibly with some sugar, a little fresh lemon juice and a hit of Gran Marnier, makes a great addition to any dessert.