First day of Christmas: Chocolate cake-a-melting

Individual Chocolate Melting Cakes

Ingredients:

10 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup
1 1/2 tsps baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
Caramel sauce
Coffee ice cream

Directions:

Heat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly coat a 12-muffin tin with vegetable cooking spray.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a large bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from heat. In another large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar at medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, and melted chocolate. Mix with a spoon until well blended.

Divide the batter evenly into 8 muffin tins and bake until the cakes have just cooked through about 15 minutes. The cakes will still look a bit moist on top. Remove from the oven and let cool 5 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream with caramel sauce on top.

Caramel Sauce

Sugar 8 oz
Water 2 oz
Lemon juice 3/4 tsp
Heavy cream 6 oz
Milk 4 oz

1. Combine sugar, water and lemon juice in heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Cook the syrup to caramel stage.

2. Remove from heat and cool 5 minutes.

3. Bring heavy cream to a boil.

4. Stir and continue to add the cream slowly. return to heat.

5. Let cool completely.

6. Stir the milk into cooled caramel.