This recipe was taken straight from the egg-box lid that lives in the Family Recipe Folder. Interestingly, it turns out that I copied it into my own recipe book when I first went to university. Apparently I considered it vital to my university career. Five years later, the Penguin wanted fruitcake, so I dug out the recipe.


I didn’t make the almond paste from scratch though…. I had 80% of a packet of marzipan to use up. A full packet would be better. But the icing was loooovely (extra icing sugar was needed to get it to the right consistency though).
And how else would a Christmas cake for a penguin be decorated? Turns out that it’s very difficult to buy penguin Christmas cake decorations. But a Penguin Bowling kit makes all the difference.

This is all that’s left:

Adapted from the BBC Good Food Best Ever Brownie Recipe.

185g butter/margarine
100g dark chocolate
185g milk chocolate
85g plain flour
3 large eggs
275g granulated sugar

Place the butter in a medium bowl with 100g dark chocolate and 85g milk chocolate broken into small pieces. Microwave for 2 minutes on High. Leave to cool to room temperature (or as near as you have time for).

Preheat the oven to Fan 160C / 180C / Gas 4. Line a roasting tin with tin foil or non-stick baking parchment.

Place the flour in a medium-sized bowl. Sieve if you’re feeling virtuous and unhurried.

Chop the remaining 100g milk chocolate into small pieces, around 1 cm square.

Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and creamy “like a milkshake”, which will take 3-8 minutes.

Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggs and fold together gently with a rubber spatula in a figure of eight motion. Don’t knock out the air you’ve just whisked in.

Sift the flour over the mixture and fold this in too.

Stir in the chunks of chocolate, then pour into the tin.

Bake for 25 minutes. If the brownie wobbles in the middle, give it a further 5 minutes until the crust is shiny and papery, and the sides are beginning to come away from the tin.

Leave in the tin until completely cool, then cut into squares.

I was reminded of this recipe by Tastespace‘s post, although I think I also have it saved from Pioneer Woman, and instantly promised the Penguin a tasty surprise the following day.

I call it fail-safe, because I was convinced it was not going to go well. Firstly, the recipe is American and thus in cups. My cup measures are in one of the two huge “Baking Boxes” in Oxford. So I had to convert the measures. And the quantities for 2 cakes are relatively small, which makes weighing on the scales here difficult. I was convinced at the supermarket that I needed cream but couldn’t justify buying a large container (which is just as well, since I returned to realise that the cream was for an entirely separate icecream recipe that I was interested in, and not for the cake at all. Then the eggs were Best Before 2 weeks ago (this is nothing to do with me). And then I was convinced that the mixture would fill four ramekins and was far too much for two…
But I roughly weighed my ingredients, tossed them together, filled up my original two ramekins, and stuck them in the oven with all my fingers crossed.

And they came out beautifully. Penguin Taste-tester of Chocolate goods Extraordinaire said so. Firm on the outside and gooey in the middle. And so easy! Even in the midst of potential disaster. Definitely fail-safe.

Molten chocolate lava cakes (makes 2 ramekin-sized cakes)
2 oz chocolate (I used plain cooking chocolate)
55g butter (1/4 cup)
60g icing sugar (1/2 cup)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp flour

The oven was on from the fish-cooking… I think at 200-220C. Original recipe reckons 425F.
Grease 2 ramekins and stand on something (I used the base of a springform tin)
Microwave butter and chocolate for 1 minute on high (the butter will be melted, stir until the chocolate is fully melted).
Stir in the icing sugar.
Whisk in the egg and egg yolk.
Stir in the flour.
Pour the batter into the ramekins.
Bake for around 13 minutes until the sides are firm and the centre is soft.
Here you should let the cakes stand for 1 minute, then invert them onto dishes.
I left them while we ate our first course, and then served one in the ramekin, since it had made such a nice dome. It was less gooey in the centre than if served at once, but still good. Definitely a nice way to round off a 30 minute supper.

It’s coming up to a year since I baked this cake for the Penguin for his birthday… I already have some ideas for this year. And yes, coffee is involved…