Hot Lava Cakes

I found a recipe for Cabernet Sauvignon Lava Cakes from McCormick Spices in one of my recipe magazines. Made it, tried it, made a face, and began pondering what was wrong and what I could do to fix it. Chatted with my friends at work and Kate suggested that maybe a little heat would be good (Rachel just said "Too strong!")

So I made three more batches with varying degrees and types of spices before finally settling on the recipe below. They're meant to be served hot, but they taste just as good cold, though there is sort of a suggestion of "Did you stuff this brownie with frosting somehow?"

Ingredients:
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate (I used Godiva): either use chips or chop up a bar
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
1 tbsp of reduced sweet red wine*
1 tsp vanilla extract (not the fake stuff, please)
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
6 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or more, if you want)^

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425.

Put chocolate and butter in a large microwavable bowl and microwave for 1 minutes or until the butter is totally melted. Whisk it to death (aka, until you don't see any lumps) Add wine and vanilla and whisk again. Add confectioners sugar and whisk until the lumps are gone or nearly so. Add in eggs and whisk until fully incorporated. (!!!!!Read Below!!!!!!) Add flour and spices and whisk again. Try not to lick too much off your fingers, no matter how delicious it is.

Butter 4 custard cups (or juice glasses, if you have no custard cups) well. Pour batter into the cups and smooth the top with a spatula. Set all four on a cookie sheet. Bake 13-15 minutes (they should puff out of the cups a little and the top will look like a baked brownie, but they'll jiggle when you shake the pan) Let set for 1 minute, then run a knife around the edge of the cup and flip upside down on a plate to serve.

To reheat: put on a microwavable plate and microwave for 30 seconds.


IMPORTANT: if you don't get all the egg beaten in properly, you could come across a portion of the cake that has a huge hunk of cooked egg (and nothing else) in it. It is disgusting

*To reduce wine, pour a full bottle into a saucepan. Simmer until it's about 1/4 of the original volume

^Do you remember when you bought your cayenne? If the answer is no, please buy some new cayenne: the older it is, the less heat it has.