Chocolate Coulant: time and temperature are a challenge

I've had this recently at three fancy restaurants (has it come back into fashion?) and decided to try and make it myself. It's an intensely chocolate dessert cake with a molten interior. My favorite was served unmolded on a plate, the other two were in the ramekins they were baked in. The challenge is getting the batter set just enough but not to much -- see my disastrous result below, and improvement after that.

Second Try: slightly over-baked, no liquid center

I've halved the recipe from My Parisian Kitchen and am trying it first with the mediocre store brand chocolate (40% cocoa) I have on hand; she didn't specify the type of flour, so I used cake flour with 10% protein. If I can get the texture right -- delicate cake barely containing the liquid center -- I'll try again with good quality chocolate.

Serves 2 richly.

  2    Eggs

 70 g  Sugar

 67 g  Dark Chocolate (55-70% cocoa)

 60 g  Butter, unsalted, cut into chunks

 22 g  Cake/Pastry Flour (Farina per a rebosteria)

pinch  Salt

       Butter, soft

       Cocoa, for dusting, optional

Just five basic ingredients

Melt the Chocolate with the Butter in a microwave (about one minute) or double boiler; let cool a bit to avoid cooking the Eggs.

Whisk the Sugar and Eggs together until smooth.

Slowly whisk the Chocolate mixture into the Egg mixture, whisking continuously.

Sift the Flour into the mixture and add a tiny pinch of Salt; gently whisk to combine.

Butter the insides of two 200-250 ml ramekins; optionally dust with Cocoa to coat bottom and sides.

Fill the ramekins with the batter.

My batter was about 325 ml and my ramekins are only 175 ml so the batter came up higher than I would have liked; fortunately it didn't overflow!

Chill in the fridge for at least an hour. You want them to be cold when they hit the oven so the outside bakes to become cake-y while the inside remains unset.

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Remove the ramekins from the fridge and bake about 10 minutes until the outside sets and the liquid sheen on the top disappears.

Serve immediately in their ramekins with a spoon.

(You might be able to invert these and gently release the cakes from the ramekins, but I've read that this is almost impossible. It might be facilitated by lining the ramekins with parchment, but bakers better than me use bottom-less baking circles lined with buttered parchment set atop parchment-lined baking sheets.)

Now the results... I cooked these directly from the fridge on the chilled baking sheet for 11 minutes. Then I inverted the less-risen one on the left to release it -- disaster!

An examination of the ramekin showed that there was only a hint of cake forming around the outside, and nothing on the bottom to encase the liquid center: it needed a lot more time in the oven. I put the taller one back in for another few minutes and you can see it rose a little more.

Improved rise but still not set below

But this one too lacked any cake structure at the bottom and barely any around the sides -- just a little around the top edges. I need to adjust the time and heat to cook the cake on the bottom and sides.

Happily, it looks like my 175 ml ramekins will barely hold the batter and the soufflé-like top is quite appealing. Silicon baking molds might allow the heat to penetrate better and possibly release cleanly, but the shock of inverting the mold onto a plate still risks breaking the cake shell.

Next time... Don't use a chilled or even room temperature pan below the ramekins: it prevents heat from circulating around the bottom.  Increase the cooking time, to at least 15 minutes.  Perhaps remove the ramekins from the fridge while the oven is preheating to allow the ceramic to warm up a bit and give the lower part a chance to heat through; experiment by taking one ramekin out early, and/or by baking one 5 minutes longer than the other. Perhaps try spooning cooled batter into room temperature ramekins, or baking room temperature batter. Lots of things to try. 

Second Try: 20 minutes -- cake-y all the way through

This time, I used better chocolate: 84% Cobertura Negra de Guayaquil Extra Bitter from Parami.

More importantly, I did not place anything below the ramekins (to let air circulate), and baked for 20 minutes at 200C.  It was cake-like all the way through -- including the bottom -- with just a hint of not-quite-liquid chocolate in the center.  At 15 minutes I saw liquid chocolate flowing out of the top like lava (onto the oven floor, oops), so I left it in another 5 minutes -- maybe I should have taken it out at 15.

Interestingly, they were set enough that they (barely) released, because they were almost as firm as a muffin or cupcake.

Next time, try 18 minutes, or maybe one at 15 and the other at 18 minutes.

Stovetop Skillet Pizza: a slice of disappointment

We miss hosting pizza parties with the wood-fired pizza oven we built in Arlington. In our small Barcelona flat we avoid cranking up an oven -- it gets hot here, and energy is more expensive than in the States. Could we make pizza on the stovetop?

TL;DR: No -- the corona was floppy and the crust gummy instead of crispy.

Classic Margherita: tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella, basil

Most recipes for "cast iron pan pizza" build it in the pan but then cook it in a hot oven. The Kitchn has a good post that cooks one side at a fairly low temperature, then flips, tops, and finishes covered to melt the cheese; seems like a good place to start, but we'll make our own dough.

I'm using the same 66% hydration I used for our pizza parties, similar to when we tested steel, stone, and brick for the oven during COVID. The pizza flour we can find here contains sodium carbonate as a leavener which I don't want, so we'll use strong flour (Farina de blat de força) that has 13% protein -- close to the 12.5% that our Italian 00 flour had.

350 g  Flour, strong (13% protein)

  2 g  Yeast (1/2 tsp)

 10 g  Salt (volume depends on coarseness)

230 g  Water

Weigh the dry ingredients into a bowl, stir to combine, make a well, and weigh in the water. 

Stir, combine, and push around to get it to form a shaggy ball.

On the counter, knead enough to get the lumps out; it'll be sticky.

This should be good enough for an extended rise with the high hydration we're using -- the "no knead" technique.

Put back into a covered bowl or lidded tub and let rise slowly in the fridge for 1-3 days; the long slow fermentation develops a lot more flavor than fast rises; it should at least double in size. 

I let it rise 3 days, pulled it out 2 hours before starting to prep and saw it was bubbly -- hopefully not too over-risen. I turned out the 570 g blob onto a floured counter and cut it into three 190 g balls, shaped into balls, and dropped them into lightly oiled containers to rise a bit. I used this time to make a garlic-chili oil and gather toppings.

As the Kitchn says, I cooked the first side in a oiled cast iron skillet for a couple minutes to set it, then flipped and topped.

After topping, I covered with a lid until the cheese melted, and checked the bottom for scorching, and pulled it out when it was browned enough.

Our third came out with the best texture, using level #6 (of 0-9) on our induction cooktop for both sides. But the corona was gummy and the center didn't really seem cooked all the way through. It may be that our elderly induction cooktop doesn't have coils that extend to the edge of our cast-iron pan, but I really don't see how we could ever get a crust like from our pizza oven -- it's just a slice of disappointment. With a certified Napoli-style pizza place a half block from our house, this just isn't worth the time and trouble.

Our best: Mallorcan sobrasada and quail eggs

We'd like to try using the same dough recipe (the texture and quantity were good) but cook it on a barbeque. We've done this before, but we'll need something under it -- aluminum foil? -- or else it'll sag through rack like the clock in Dali's "Persistence of Memory".

Bacalhau com Natas: Portuguese salt cod with cream sauce

Friends of ours mentioned enjoying this while traveling in Portugal and it sounded like fun since I enjoy Bacalao. It turned out well: very rich, creamy, with soft potatoes -- a fine dish for cooler weather. 

Crusty gratin with creamy bacalao and potatoes

This recipe is based on several I found: Crumb-Snatched, We Travel Portugal, Authentic Food Quest, and Portuguese Soul Kitchen. Most boil the fish in water but AFQ's cooks it in milk which makes more sense: it flavors the milk rather than diluting the fish. All the recipes call for Mozzarella for the gratin, but that seems too pizza-like so I used Parmesan and another cheese which I had on hand; you could use only Parmesan.

I'm using frozen Bacalao/Bacallà al punt de sal for convenience, and because it's less expensive than the dry salt cod I reserve for dishes like Pil Pil. If you use dry Bacalao, you'll need to hydrate for 2-3 days in several changes of water. Some recipes suggest using store bought shoestring fries instead of frying potatoes yourself, which I think is clever, but I'm not stooping to that yet. 

This serves 2 generously.

300 g      Bacalao al punt de sal, thawed

200 g      Milk

  1        Bay Leaf

 45 ml     Olive Oil

  1 large  Onion, yellow or white, peeled, sliced

  2 clove  Garlic, sliced

300 g      Potato, peeled, cut into 1 cm cubes

 20 g      Butter

 20 g      Flour

100 ml     Cream

           Nutmeg, grated

           Salt

           Pepper

 25 g      Cheese, Pecorino Romano, grated

 25 g      Cheese, Parmesan, grate

  5 sprigs Parsley, chopped 

If using dried Bacalao, hydrate it 2-3 days in multiple changes of water.

To save time, cook the Bacalao at the same time as you sauté the Onions, then make the bechamel while frying the Potatoes.

In a pot, simmer the Bacalao in the Milk with the Bay, covered on low for 10 minutes.

Drain, reserving the Milk.

Discard any skin, bones, and the Bay.

Flake the fish with fork or fingers.

Onions and garlic on left, bacalao and milk on right

In a skillet, sauté Onion and Garlic in 15 ml Oil until tender.

Add cooked Bacalao and fry 5 minutes; reserve to a cazuela or baking dish.

Coat the bottom of the same skillet with 30 ml Oil and fry the Potatoes until golden and barely cooked through; cover the skillet after developing the crust to speed the cooking.

In the same pot as you cooked the Bacalao, melt Butter and add Flour, whisk to create a paste and cook the Flour for a few minutes.

Slowly add the fishy Milk and cook, whisking continuously until you get a sauce a little thicker than heavy cream

Add the Cream and Nutmeg, then adjust with Salt and Pepper. 

Remove from heat.

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Layer the Potatoes on the Onions/Bacalao in the cazuela and shake to distribute evenly.

Top with the bechamel, and even out again.

Top with grated Cheese.

Bake at 200C for 20 minutes until cheese is melted and browned.

Garnish with Parsley.

Serve with a dry white wine.