I have always admired Cooking Tree’s minimalist and satisfying ASMR YouTube Videos with perfectly crafted, mouthwatering bakes. So in today’s blog post we’re Testing Cooking Tree’s Fondant au Chocolat Recipe AKA a Chocolate Lava Cake.
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This is the video that came up on my YouTube Explore Page and gained almost 240k views. I know right, looks pretty good. Well, this is what we are making in today’s blog post.
I will be Judging this recipe on 3 main Aspects:
– Appearance
Basically how close my version of this recipe looks compared to Cooking Tree’s.
– Main Selling Point: Chocolate Lava
A lot of recipe have a ‘Main Selling Point’ i.e. what makes us want to make this specific recipe compared to any other on the internet. This Lava cake in particular has a very interestingly smooth and silky chocolate lava. We shall see if we can recreate this today.
– Overall Taste and Texture
Lastly, ‘Overall Taste and Texture’ questions if I would eat/make this recipe again as well as how intense the chocolate flavour of this cake is.
So, now that we have our judging categories, Let’s get right into making this luscious Chocolate Lava Cake!
Making the Batter:
Overall the batter making experience with this recipe went basically perfectly.
– Firstly, melting the butter and chocolate together. My advice here is to use a Double Boiler to melt your ingredients together as it seems to create a smoother chocolate mixture (less risk of your butter and chocolate splitting).
– Next whisk your eggs, vanilla, salt and sugar together and then add this to you chocolate mixture. TIP: make sure you let your chocolate cool slightly before adding your egg mixture so that your eggs don’t scramble
– Then gently stir in your cake flour and cocoa powder to from your Chocolate Lava Cake Batter. Personally, I think that the difference between using cake flour and plain flour is very slight so if you do not have cake flour on hand, simply use regular.
– Make sure to then grease your ramekins with some sort of oil or oil spray so that your cakes don’t stick when removing them from the pan (you can also dust the edges with white sugar to be really safe but this is not essential).
– Bake in a 190ºC oven for about 10-12 mins. I have found baking these lava cakes is simply subject to your texture preference. If you dislike the liquid goo middle of a lava cake, simply bake in the oven for an extra minute or two to achieve a more ‘brownie’ sort of texture. I think 10-11 mins is a great balance of liquid chocolate to cake ratio.
– Once out of the oven, dust your cakes with powdered sugar for a beautiful contrast effect when serving!
The Results:
– Appearance- 9/10
The overall look of this Chocolate Lava Cake is practically exactly the same as Cooking Tree’s. I feel like this particular recipe is very foolproof, especially how Cooking Tree shows and explains all the steps in the baking process in a lot of detail. This is why I’m giving an Appearance score of 9/10.
– Main Selling Point: Chocolate Lava- 8.5/10
I was slightly disappointed with the liquidity of the chocolate lava in this recipe. My cakes did not produce even half as much as the goo show in Cooking Tree’s video; I cooked mine for exactly 12 mins. Of course, there are factors such as oven temperature etc that could be a reason for this so if you are going to make this recipe, keep in mind if you want a true chocolate lava cake, bake your cakes for about 10-11 mins max (depending on your oven temperature). The Main Selling Point score for this bake is a 8.5/10.
– Overall Taste and Texture- 7.5/10
In this recipe I used broken up Dairy Milk chocolate (if you live in the UK you’ll understand my choice) therefore, I expected the cake to taste quite like this chocolate bar, alas, the overall flavour was bombarded with a rich cocoa powder flavour. Therefore, in my opinion the texture of the cake was spot on and really great, however the flavour was almost too rich for my taste, but this is just me. If I was to tweak this recipe slightly, maybe tone down the cocoa powder a bit and increase the flour slightly. Overall, Taste and Texture score for this Chocolate Lava Cake is a 7.5/10.
Aspect | Score |
Appearance | 9/10 |
Main Selling Point: Chocolate Lava | 8.5/10 |
Overall Taste and Texture | 7.5/10 |
Overall Score | 8.3/10 |
Should you Make this Molten Chocolate Lava Cake?
The big question every wants to know the answer to, after all this chocolate cake analysis, Should you Make this Cake? Well, if your looking for a great Winter or Holiday Dessert that is sure to make your guests impressed or maybe your just craving something rich and chocolatey, the answer is YES! Cooking Tree is an amazing baking channel and this Fondant au Chocolat or Molten Lava Cake is no exception.
Need more chocolate cake recipes? Why not try this Chocolate Cookie Dough Cake or maybe this Marble Cake Recipe.
If you liked this blog post and if you want me to test out any other recipes, leave a comment below or email on [email protected] 💗
Testing Cooking Tree’s Fondant au Chocolat Recipe | Chocolate Lava Cake
Ingredients
- – 1 + 1/2 cup Chocolate
- – 1/2 cup Salted Butter
- – 3 large Eggs
- – 1/4 cup White Sugar
- – 1/2 cup Cake Flour
- – 1/4 cup Cocoa Powder
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 190ºC
- Melt the Butter and Chocolate together on a double boiler or the microwave until fully melted
- Whisk the eggs and sugar together
- Mix your egg mixture and chocolate mixture together (making sure the chocolate has cooled down a bit)
- Gently fold in your cake flour and cocoa powder until combined
- Pour your mixture into 6 greased ramekins and bake them in your preheated oven for about 10-12 mins
- Once cooled slightly, take out of ramekins and dust with powdered sugar
- Enjoy!