Chocolate Lava Cake

A couple of weeks ago I discovered The Pioneer Woman's cooking show.  The show popped up on Netflix.  I've heard of her before, but I had never seen her show because we do not have cable.  I had not ever been to her blog.  I had knew she has a cooking show and lives in Oklahoma.  Anywho, after I binge-watched five episodes, I asked my Facebook friends about her.  Apparently, everyone has heard of her and seen her show.  

My friend, Jenny, brought me one of her Pioneer Woman cook book today.  It's called The Pioneer Woman Cooks Food From My Frontier.  I haven't made anything from it yet, but I already like it because she has step-by-step instructions with pictures.  Very helpful for a person like me who is culinarily challenged.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that I made a corn casserole for Thanksgiving.  I found a recipe on Pinterest.  I wanted a crockpot recipe that would be easy to make and that I wouldn't have to cook or prepare at my mom's house.  It only called for a can of corn, a can of creamed corn, one package of Jiffy cornbread, one stick of butter and a cup of sour cream.  I doubled the recipe and threw it in the crockpot for four hours.  By the time it was time to eat, the middle had somehow liquified.  The outsides and bottom had burned to nice charcoal color.  My sister thought it was a cheese dip.  It was sad.  I redeemed myself a few days later when my friend, Mrs. Courtney, gave me her recipe for corn casserole.  Same recipe, just cooked in the over for 45 minutes instead.  Perfection.  I wish I had a picture of the first corn casserole.  It was horrendous.  

However, today's experiment was not horrendous at all.  It was a little bit of heaven.  I found the recipe on Pinterest when I was searching for Pioneer Woman recipes.  Actually, the recipe I found on her blog was a guest post so it isn't technically isn't a Pioneer Woman's recipe.  It's from Tasty Kitchen.  The Tasty Kitchen calls the recipe a chocolate cobbler, but it's more like a chocolate lava cake.  It is so delicious and easy to make.  If you bake even just a little, you'll most likely have everything in your pantry.  The last step in the recipe is different than any other cake recipe I've seen, but it turned out perfectly.  It was a hit for my whole family.  Of course, I topped it with vanilla ice cream. I could also see drizzling it with caramel sauce.  Mmmmm.

So you basically make a chocolate cake.

Then you make a cocoa, sugar and brown sugar topping you spread on top of your cake.  Next, this is the step that is a little different.  You add a some hot tap water on top of of the sugar topping.

Slide it into the oven and bake for 45 minutes.  When you pull it out, it looks similar to brownies.

However, when you cut into it, you see the chocolate goodness or "lava".

Scoop it out, top it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and try not to eat the rest of the cake. 

Here is the original link on the Tasty Kitchen.  She has spectacular step-by-step pictures on the post.

Here is the recipe. 

Chocolate Lava Cake

Ingredients:

1 C. of all purpose flour

2 t. of baking powder

1/4 t. of salt

7 T. of cocoa powder, divided

1 1/4 C. of sugar, divided

1/2 C. of milk

1/3 C. of melted butter

1 1/2 t. of vanilla extract

1/2 C. of light brown sugar, packed

1 1/2 C. of HOT tap water

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Combine flour, baking powder, salt, 3 T. of the cocoa, and 3/4 C. of the white sugar. Reserve the remaining cocoa and sugar.
3.  Stir in the milk, melted butter, and vanilla to the flour mixture. Mix until smooth.
4.  Pour the mixture into an ungreased 8-inch baking dish.
5.  In a separate small bowl, mix the remaining white sugar (it should be 1/2 cup), the brown sugar, and remaining 4 tablespoons of cocoa.
6.  Sprinkle this mixture evenly over the batter.
7.  Pour the hot tap water over all. DO NOT STIR!
8.  Bake for about 40 minutes or until the center is set.

Let stand for a few minutes and serve topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Let stand for a few minutes if you can hold yourself back.