When I received “La Tartine Gourmande” by Béatrice Peltre in the mail, I was walking around Edgartown, so I settled in for a coffee and a browsing of this gorgeous cookbook. I spent the next hour sipping on my Mocha Latte and reading this book. The author’s words enthralled me, and the colors, styling, and simply delicious food made me hungry for more than a coffee.
Béatrice Peltre is the author of the award-winning blog, LaTartineGourmande.com, and this cookbook is living proof that we eat through our eyes. Béatrice captures the brightness in fruits and vegetables with the earthy tones of whole grains, making you just want to reach into the book and have a bite!
Her recipes are meant “to inspire”, and as I flipped through, I left a post-it in every recipe I wanted to try. More than half of them were marked, so how would I narrow down a recipe to make for the blog? I asked my husband of course!
Ultimately it came down to the Beet and Quinoa Tabouli and the hazelnut molten lava cakes.
Yeah, the quinoa didn’t really stand a chance against warm, unctuous chocolate. I’m sharing this recipe with you, thanks to permission from Roost Books in Boston.
I’ve already made the hazelnut molten lava cakes three times (small batches). I used almond meal instead of hazelnut flour in one batch, and the cakes came out beautifully!
Here’s the recipe for the hazelnut molten lava cakes. I hope you enjoy them!
Hazelnut Molten Lava Cakes
Rich chocolate hazelnut cake with a center of liquid chocolate. Decadent and delicious!
Print Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 tablespoons 85 g; 3 oz unsalted butter, plus more for the molds
- Flour of your choice to dust the molds
- 4 oz 115 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
- 2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
- ¼ cup 50 g; 1 ¾ oz blond cane sugar
- ½ teaspoon fleur de sel
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons 22 ½ g; ¾ oz hazelnut or millet flour
- 1 oz 30 g hazelnut-flavored chocolate, cut into 4 pieces
- Confectioners’ sugar to dust
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450ºF (230ºC). Butter the ramekins, then coat them with flour and tap the excess out. Melt the dark chocolate and butter in a bain-marie.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine eggs, sugar, and fleur de sel and beat until the batter has tripled in volume and is light and pale in color (about 8 minutes). Add vanilla and fold in the flour, then the melted chocolate-butter mixture, making sure to keep the batter light each time.
- Divide three-quarters of the batter among the ramekins and add one piece of hazelnut chocolate at the center of each mold. Cover with the rest of the batter. At this point, if you want, you can refrigerate the cakes until you are ready to bake and serve them. If you do, bring them back to room temperature before baking.
- Place cakes in the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes (if you bake 6 cakes, they tend to need 10 minutes only). The less time you bake the cakes, the more gooey the inside will be. Remove from oven and leave them to rest for 5 minutes. Invert onto dessert plates or serve them in the ramekins. Dust with confectioners’ sugar before serving.
Notes
You will need: four ¾-cup ramekins or six 2/3-cup ramekins
Servings: 4 -6
Thanks for sharing this recipe! I’ve had this on my to-bake list ever since I borrowed La Tartine Gourmande from the library last year. I was excited about the recipe, because at the time, I had a large bag of millet flour. I no longer had the millet flour, so I made my own hazelnut flour in the food processor and added about a tablespoon of all purpose flour since my hazelnuts were a bit chunky. The flavor and texture were nice, especially with a small scoop of ice cream to sweeten it up a bit (I used granulated sugar, so perhaps that cut the sweetness)! If I cream and a bit more time, I’d probably make a hazelnut ganache for the filling (maybe with amaretto?), but a square of hazelnut chocolate was a great time saver.