I'm sure a lot of you would have heard how cinnamon or nutmeg or a few spices can change any dish for better or worse, depending on the quantity you've used. The same is well and true for desserts.
Or even something as simple as milk. Hot milk with an inch long piece of cinnamon and some sugar is an absolute delight just before sleeping at night. Whenever i've had it just before bed, it puts me to sleep pretty well.
There's no real preparation for this though. You heat the milk, pour it into a cup, add the sugar to your liking and drop your cinnamon stick into it. The aroma is far better than that of milk and the flavor too settles your stomach.
Of course, if you're not too fond of sugar, you could try the same with chocolate. I've tried making this milk with dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate. Honestly though, with cinnamon, the white chocolate tastes best. You should also add at least one and a half times the amount of chocolate you would normally put in because otherwise you can't really detect the flavor of the white chocolate.
Some other exciting things to do, would be to make Chocolate lava cakes! These are pretty easy to make and you would only be dirtying two vessels tops to get the batter ready, and you'll require at least six ramekins.
And i've looked through a few of these recipes and made some adjustments of my own. With my recipe, you should be able to actually taste the chocolate in the cake instead of just sugar as well as any kind of spice that you add.
So, without further ado:
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
120 gms chocolate (sweetened cooking chocolate)
120 gms butter (salted - i use Amul)
1 cup flour
pinch of nutmeg (trust me, less is mroe with this)
pinch of cinnamon (if you don't have powdered cinnamon, simply use a very small piece - about 2 cms x 0.5 cm should do. anything more is overkill)
Milk (keep about 1/2 a cup, you may not need it)
Take out a saucepan and half fill it with water. Put it on the stove to heat it up. This will be your double boiler.
In a smaller vessel, measure out the butter and the butter and the chocolate. When the water starts boiling, hold this vessel just above the water and stir the mixture with a spoon. The reason why you should hold it above the water instead of letting it contact the water is because if it is in contact with the water, the chocolate at the bottom solidifies and burns.
Once your chocolate and butter has melted, set the vessel aside and leave it to cool. Remember to stir the mixture every once in a while though, so that the chocolate doesn't solidify on the sides of the vessel.
In the meantime, powder your sugar with the pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon (powdered or not - the mixer will powder your cinnamon for you) and place it a vessel. Crack two eggs over the sugar and bring out your hand mixer. the reason why i've asked you to crack the eggs over the powdered sugar is so that the sugar doesn't fly out of the bowl when you try to beat it.
Note that you could beat this by hand as well, however, you would require several people to help. With the hand mixer, you beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture takes on a white color and the goop gives some slight resistance when you simply try to push the goop around with your hand mixer.
By this time, your chocolate and butter mixture should have cooled, so you simply pour this mixture into the egg mixture and beat it in with the hand mixer/whisk/whatever you're using.
Once this is done, dump your flour in and beat it in. Once completely blended, check if the mixture 'flows' on it's own. If the mixture is pretty solid, add some milk. Once the batter has the ability to 'flow' on its own, and by this i don't mean it's extremely runny, it should at least be a sludgy gloop, prepare your 6 ramekins by lining it with either oil or butter (i've found oil works better) and then pour your batter into the 6 ramekins.
If you don't plan to bake all of the cakes at the same time, remember that you can stick any extra in the fridge till you want to eat it. Note that this is safe only upto 3 - 4 days because of the raw egg in the mixture.
Once you're ready to bake the cakes, preheat the oven to 230C and then place the cakes in, reset the temperature to 200C and bake it for about 10 - 12 minutes.
After the 10 - 12 minutes are over, to check if your cake is too runny or not, with a thick hand towel/dish towel/oven gloves, pick up one ramekin and tilt it sideways. If liquid immediately runs out on all the angles you've tilted it at, give it another 5 minutes or so.
Also I've noted that different people like this cooked to different consistencies. Try baking it a little less or a little more to see what you like best! This recipe i've tried on both dark chocolate as well as white chocolate and the white chocolate turned out extremely well!
Now, the reason why this recipe you'll like better is because for one, the taste of raw egg doesn't come through very strongly. Two, you can taste the flavor of the chocolate instead of a sugary mess. Three, the cinnamon and nutmeg add this exotic taste and aroma. They just uplift the cake to new levels.
So, bon appetit ~
If you guys like my recommendations, i'll be sure to try out more new recipes and post them :)
Or even something as simple as milk. Hot milk with an inch long piece of cinnamon and some sugar is an absolute delight just before sleeping at night. Whenever i've had it just before bed, it puts me to sleep pretty well.
There's no real preparation for this though. You heat the milk, pour it into a cup, add the sugar to your liking and drop your cinnamon stick into it. The aroma is far better than that of milk and the flavor too settles your stomach.
Of course, if you're not too fond of sugar, you could try the same with chocolate. I've tried making this milk with dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate. Honestly though, with cinnamon, the white chocolate tastes best. You should also add at least one and a half times the amount of chocolate you would normally put in because otherwise you can't really detect the flavor of the white chocolate.
Some other exciting things to do, would be to make Chocolate lava cakes! These are pretty easy to make and you would only be dirtying two vessels tops to get the batter ready, and you'll require at least six ramekins.
So, without further ado:
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
120 gms chocolate (sweetened cooking chocolate)
120 gms butter (salted - i use Amul)
1 cup flour
pinch of nutmeg (trust me, less is mroe with this)
pinch of cinnamon (if you don't have powdered cinnamon, simply use a very small piece - about 2 cms x 0.5 cm should do. anything more is overkill)
Milk (keep about 1/2 a cup, you may not need it)
Take out a saucepan and half fill it with water. Put it on the stove to heat it up. This will be your double boiler.
In a smaller vessel, measure out the butter and the butter and the chocolate. When the water starts boiling, hold this vessel just above the water and stir the mixture with a spoon. The reason why you should hold it above the water instead of letting it contact the water is because if it is in contact with the water, the chocolate at the bottom solidifies and burns.
Once your chocolate and butter has melted, set the vessel aside and leave it to cool. Remember to stir the mixture every once in a while though, so that the chocolate doesn't solidify on the sides of the vessel.
In the meantime, powder your sugar with the pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon (powdered or not - the mixer will powder your cinnamon for you) and place it a vessel. Crack two eggs over the sugar and bring out your hand mixer. the reason why i've asked you to crack the eggs over the powdered sugar is so that the sugar doesn't fly out of the bowl when you try to beat it.
Note that you could beat this by hand as well, however, you would require several people to help. With the hand mixer, you beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture takes on a white color and the goop gives some slight resistance when you simply try to push the goop around with your hand mixer.
By this time, your chocolate and butter mixture should have cooled, so you simply pour this mixture into the egg mixture and beat it in with the hand mixer/whisk/whatever you're using.
Once this is done, dump your flour in and beat it in. Once completely blended, check if the mixture 'flows' on it's own. If the mixture is pretty solid, add some milk. Once the batter has the ability to 'flow' on its own, and by this i don't mean it's extremely runny, it should at least be a sludgy gloop, prepare your 6 ramekins by lining it with either oil or butter (i've found oil works better) and then pour your batter into the 6 ramekins.
If you don't plan to bake all of the cakes at the same time, remember that you can stick any extra in the fridge till you want to eat it. Note that this is safe only upto 3 - 4 days because of the raw egg in the mixture.
Once you're ready to bake the cakes, preheat the oven to 230C and then place the cakes in, reset the temperature to 200C and bake it for about 10 - 12 minutes.
After the 10 - 12 minutes are over, to check if your cake is too runny or not, with a thick hand towel/dish towel/oven gloves, pick up one ramekin and tilt it sideways. If liquid immediately runs out on all the angles you've tilted it at, give it another 5 minutes or so.
Now, the reason why this recipe you'll like better is because for one, the taste of raw egg doesn't come through very strongly. Two, you can taste the flavor of the chocolate instead of a sugary mess. Three, the cinnamon and nutmeg add this exotic taste and aroma. They just uplift the cake to new levels.
So, bon appetit ~
If you guys like my recommendations, i'll be sure to try out more new recipes and post them :)
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