If you haven’t yet seen Amy Schumer’s new music video, “Milk Milk Lemonade, ” you must. It’s a catchy little doodie, I mean…dity, that simultaneously pays homage to the dirty rhymes of my childhood and silently delivers an alley oop-cobra clutch parody-slam to the over-produced music and celebrity of Jennifer Lopez, Meghan Trainor, Kelis, Nicki Manaj, and of course KimK & Kanye who have all made 2014 the year of the booty.
Outta K*ntrol
Now I realize this might be slightly crude–I guess I am hoping that everyone has the same stomach of steel and can move from naughty to nice in a booty drop of a hat–but I was inspired by Amy to make something extra rich and chocolatey this week.
Because I had just made Lemon-rhubarb custard cakes, which were super fluffy and delicious, I wanted to quickly experiment with that recipe to see what other flavors I could come up with. I made a delicious chocolate-clementine version today that uses cocoa powder, clementine zest/juice, and Grand Marnier.
Hee Hee Hee Hon Hon Hon. . .
But I had a kitchen disaster:( I let my mind wander while I was mixing ingredients. At some point while mixing the chocolate batter, I realized that it was far too thick. I wasn’t making these excellent chocolate-clementine souffle-flan custard cakes at all! Nonetheless, I decided to pop the batter-filled ramekins into the oven anyhow and see what happened. . .
The 1st Great Kitchen Disaster of 2015: MOLTEN CHOCOLATE CAKE!
Eureka: The long lost secret to Molten Chocolate Cake!
Before I go into the process for making the molten chocolate cake, I want to share the recipe for the delicious and fluffy custard cakes. In a nutshell, simply follow the recipe for lemon-rhubarb cakes and…
- Leave out the rhubarb
- Substitute the Clementine zest for the lemon zest
- Substitute Clementine juice and Grand Marnier for the lemon juice at a 1:1 ratio (i.e. 1/8 cup of clementine juice (about 1 clementine), and 1/8 cup of Grand Marnier).
- Add 4 tbsps of melted bittersweet chocolate added to the custard batter.
- Bake at 350 F in a water bath for 20-25 minutes. Cool and then…chow down!
Now for the Molten Cake. . . First gather four fresh clementines. Zest and juice two of them and set the zest and juice aside in separate containers. Peel the remaining two clementines and separate and chop the sects into small pieces about 1/4” in length.
If you are able to remove the casings before chopping, even better, but this is quite time consuming. When you are done place the chopped clementines in a bath of Grand Marnier so that the Grand Marnier covers the clementines–about 4 tbsp.
Now assemble your mis en place with all of your ingredients. Here’s mine…
Now, I’m not entirely sure what I was thinking of making here. For the molten chocolate cake you will need nearly all of these ingredients. My main mistake here was that I made chocolate cake and completely forgot to add the milk. So, while you will need the coco-powder, the eggs (separated out), the confectioners sugar etc., you will NOT need milk. Leave it in the fridge.
Allow the clementines to sit in the Grand Marnier for a few hours before getting everything started, but when you’re ready, first pre-heat the oven to 350 F. Combine the egg yolks and the sugar (gradually), the vanilla, the zest, and the flour, in a stand mixer, mixing on medium.
Toss in the clementines and Grand Marnier and mix until incorporated.
Dump the cocoa powder into the mixture and…mix!
The batter will be a bit thick at this point and the color should be a nice rich dark brown (see the photo above). Set the batter aside and in a separate bowl, whisk together the egg-whites and either 1/4 tsp of salt or a few drops of vinegar. Do this very quickly until you have medium peeks. Incorporate by folding the egg whites into the chocolate batter.
Meanwhile, butter up your ramekins to prepare to put them into the oven. Fill the ramekins with the finalized chocolate cake batter and place into the oven for approximately 45-50 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving. If you can, wiggle the cakes out of the ramekins and invert onto plates or simply leave them in the ramekins and grab a spoon. Deeeelish. Enjoy!
- 4 eggs separated
- 2 clementines zested and juiced
- 2 clementines chopped
- 4 tbsp Grand Marnier
- ¾ cup confectioners sugar
- ¾ cup flour
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- ¼ tsp salt
TheGrumpyGourmand is a rug-rat of a cook always up for a challenge. A former cookie stealer. A bakers apprentice. A hacker in the kitchen. Starting with a few basic skills, he's undergoing a challenge to cook his way from novice to expert starting in 2015. 
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