chocolate | Life on the Unfarm

1 tablespoon butter, plus extra for greasing
1/2 – 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder, flour, OR sugar
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus 1 tablespoon
1 large egg
4 teaspoons sugar
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Thoroughly butter a 3/4 cup ramekin, then coat it with unsweetened cocoa powder, flour OR sugar. (Put in a small amount of the dry ingredient in the ramekin and tilt to get the bottom evenly covered, then tap the ramekin as you turn it, coating the sides as well. Dump out any extra.) Set ramekin aside.

Melt the butter and chocolate chips together and stir well. I used a double boiler but next time I’ll try it in the microwave – one less dish to wash.

Whisk the egg and sugar together in a small bowl, then mix into the chocolate mixture until well incorporated, then stir in salt and flour until just mixed. Pour the batter into the ramekin, place on a baking sheet and put on the middle rack in the oven. Bake for 7-10 minutes for a molten center (a 3/4 inch ring around the edge will look dull) or 10 to 12 minutes for a soft center (cake edge will look slightly puffy.)

Let cool a couple minutes and enjoy.

I’ve made this recipe twice now, and the first time I baked it for somewhere around the 7-10 minute range and it turned out to be almost entirely batter, with baked edges. Much too doughy for my taste, although it made an okay chocolate topping for the ice cream I had it with. Although, I did have 7 ramekins in the oven that time. The second time I made it I stuck to a single ramekin and baked it longer, until the top had puffed up out of the dish about half an inch and it was much better that way. But feel free to experiment on your own.

The original recipe called for a tablespoon of peanut butter instead of the additional tablespoon of chocolate chips, but I’m not that crazy about peanut butter in baking so I swapped it out. I found the recipe in Sunset magazine (my absolute favorite – I highly recommend it if you live on the west coast) and they got it from Joy the Baker Cookbook.

I made the mistake of buying a box of chocolate creams (my weakness… although if I’m going to be totally honest, almost anything with chocolate or sugar is a weakness of mine – I have a serious sweet tooth) a couple of weeks ago and I finally opened them on Monday. (No relation to Valentine’s Day – it just happened to be the day that I finally gave in and opened the box.) This is probably extremely counter-productive to my goal of losing weight, but so far I have managed to limit my sweet tooth to one cream a day. I even managed to talk myself out of a second chocolate this evening after dinner when a serious craving hit. This craving was made worse by the sad realization that the dogs actually had a better dessert than I did today – they were scarfing down brownies while I was looking at a fine selection of ripe, over-ripe, and one-day-away-from-totally-rotten bananas. How depressing.

But, in case there are any canines following this blog (or people who enjoy spoiling their dogs) I’ll include the recipe, and my notes, here:

Bow Wow Brownies

1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons honey
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup carob chips
1/4 cup carob powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium-sized bowl, blend the oil and honey thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour onto a greased 15×10 inch baking sheet. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool, then cut into bite-sized squares and store in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

Notes: I pretty much followed this recipe exactly, except that I put the batter into a greased 6×9 pan instead of onto a sheet. It baked perfectly and I sliced it once it cooled and they turned out great – just like regular brownies. The dogs absolutely love them. (They appear to have inherited my sweet tooth…)

The recipe, by the way, is from Real Food for Dogs by Arden Moore