Dress rehearsal

Back in October, I talked about how we had already started to plan for Roth’s 30th birthday dinner this January, a grand multi-course feast for family and friends in honor of his triumphant arrival at the beginning of a new decade. At the time, we already knew the theme for the seven-course dinner, each course to be inspired by one of the seven deadly sins (yes, a blatant ripoff from a brilliant Top Chef challenge from the second season) in some creative way, but it wasn’t until last weekend that we finally did some research on the sins and meticulously mapped out the menu for the meal. I have to say, with Roth at the helm (and little ‘ol me in charge of just two of the courses), this dinner could be legendary. With less than two weeks to go until the big night, we decided it would be a good idea to test out some of the courses, just to make sure they’re realistically executable. Without giving too much away about the courses and corresponding sins (since a select few of my readers will be at the dinner, and I want a part of the dinner to be for the guests to guess the sins), I attempted to make individual bittersweet molten chocolate cakes today. (You can probably guess which sin this dessert is to represent, but the others might not be so obvious. Like monkfish. Just which sin could this unassuming seafood be guilty of? Hint: it’s one of the ugliest fishes I’ve ever seen.) I didn’t have a recipe on deck for the chocolate cakes. I just knew that I wanted them to be single-serving, and when cut into, they needed to be ooey and gooey, as if molten chocolate lava was slowly spilling forth from the cakey interior. I decided to use this recipe from Bon Appetit, mainly because it seemed pretty foolproof. I started out by accessing our bittersweet chocolate inventory. Coincidentally, I had chosen Callebaut-brand chocolate from the bulk bins at Central Market the other day, and I had more than enough for the recipe. Next up, even though the recipe didn’t call for it, I fashioned a makeshift double boiler using a steam basket and a small metal bowl with which to melt the butter and chocolate. Soon, the chocolate was warm and smooth, ready to be folded into the whirled, heavy-on-the-yolk egg mixture. (On a side note, this recipe only calls for one tablespoon of flour. These puppies are dense.) The recipe called for eight buttered and sugared mini soufflé dishes. I only had four, so I decided to bake the cakes in a muffin pan instead. The key to making sure the middles of the cakes remain molten in texture is to take them out sooner than you think they’ll be done. The middles should be runny and loose (heh, maybe not the best descriptors here). This is where I went wrong. Or so I think. I let them go about two minutes too long, and even though they look perfectly delectable here … … the middles of the cakes were decidedly not molten at all. I have to admit, I was a smidge disappointed when I cut into one of the cakes, only to discover more cake, with all of the same cooked-through consistency. I mean, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with these cakes. They’re just not molten, is all. And that truly is the essence of this dessert. That all said, I had no trouble eating the first draft of the dessert course. No sense in letting it go to waste. But it’s back to the drawing board. I’ll attempt another recipe and technique next weekend. Poor me. My life is so very rough.