Love and Peanut Butter Chocolate Luvah Cake

I have been calling in all my favors.

Chances are, if you know me, you’ve done me a favor lately, whether you owe me one or not.

I need to thank those who wrote me letters of reference, featured my blog in the newspaper, invited us for dinner, helped edit my pictures, gave me advice, gave me pictures, listened to me complain, held my crying baby, gave my baby gifts (even from London), entertained my crazy kid, helped me do my work, and forgave me for my flakiness.

Oh, and thank you to the person who let me borrow 24 ramekins on a moment’s notice so I could make chocolate molten lava cakes with my culinary class.

Thank you, dear readers and commenters and people who have been so complimentary. You have helped keep up my spirits in this stressful time.

Special thanks to chocolate lava cakes that keep giving me reasons to show up and run nightly, and scales that never lie.

But the person I need to thank the most, our resident artist:

My love. I didn’t give you any credit in that article, and I’m feeling pretty silly for it. You’re the one who makes the magic happen. You are the glue that holds this crazy together.

I never make thank you cards, but sometimes I make thank you treats.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Luvah (Lava) Cake (serves 4)

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Confession: this is the easiest and fastest cake to make. Ever. I’ve made 5 chocolate lava cake recipes in the last two weeks and this lava cake base is my favorite for its ease and flavor. Some of my students found it to be too much chocolate while others were happily scraping their plates. Predictably, there were some students who preferred Hershey’s milk chocolate to Green and Black’s dark chocolate during our chocolate tasting lesson. Leave out the peanut butter if you like. Other add-ins we tried with my class were nutella, crushed oreo cookies and bananas. Experimenting is just a good excuse to make more.

• 5 oz dark or semisweet chocolate (semisweet chocolate chips do work here)
• 1/4 lb unsalted butter
• 3/4 Cup sugar
• 1/4 Cup flour
• 3 eggs
• 4 teaspoons peanut butter

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter 4 4oz ramekins (the whole inside, not just the bottom). Don’t be shy with the butter. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and put into a microwave safe bowl with the butter. Microwave for 1 minute, stirring after thirty seconds. After 1 minute stir and make sure it is completely melted. Microwave in 20 second intervals if it is not.
2. In a separate medium bowl, with a wooden spoon mix the sugar, flour and eggs until completely combined.
3. Add the chocolate mixture slowly into the eggs while stirring until one uniform color.
4. Put about 1/4 C of the batter into each of the ramekins. Place a teaspoon of peanut butter into each ramekin on top of the batter. Cover with more batter until about 3/4 way full.
5. Bake the cakes for 10-15 minutes. The time will depend on the actual heat of your oven and the thickness of the ramekin walls. I check often and remove them just when the sides look softly set, the top looks dry and beginning to crack, but it still jiggles in the middle just a little. If you overcook it you will have just a very moist chocolate-y cake (which is good, too). Mine took 13 minutes and two of the ramekins were perfect while the other ones (with thinner walls) were slightly over done.
6. Softly pull the sides of the cake away from the walls of the ramekins with a knife or spoon, and invert onto a plate. You can also eat it straight from the ramekin. Dust with powdered sugar or garnish with a strawberry if desired. Serve immediately with ice cream, milk, or something to balance the extreme chocolate goodness.

Ok, one more. For the fans.

Hope you have a lovely Valentine’s Day. Make this for yourself even.