Before baking

Before and throughout mocks week, Emily, Arham, and I planned to make molten lava cake on Friday, when we are done with our exams.

While I had prior baking experience at home, this is the first time I am making a molten lava cake and baking without the help of an adult, so I was quite excited to bake this with my friends. We followed a recipe on YouTube, but modified it along the way as our cake mold was larger and we wanted to make a cake that was large enough for all three of us to share.

Before we start baking, we went to a baking store in town to collect our ingredients that we did not have already, which included:

• chocolate
• unsalted butter
• flour

We did not have to buy too much as we had other ingredients such as eggs and sugar. It was also important for us to make sure we bought more than enough for baking more than the recipe and also for multiple batches if we were to fail the first time.

Baking and working together

As we followed the steps stated in the YouTube video, we took charge of different tasks to be more efficient. For example, I helped measure the ingredients, while Emily sliced the chocolate bar for easier melting and Arham ground the sugar. I was also in charge of melting the chocolate. I made sure to be careful when doing so by putting the fire on low heat and having towels nearby if I needed to take the bowl of chocolate off the pan. During other times of our process, we ensured safety by cutting carefully and putting the fire on low heat. We did not rush each other as that would have led to careless mistakes and the possibility of getting injured.

We later came back together to mix all the ingredients according to the video’s directions. Because we only had a whisk and we needed the egg to have a foamy texture, we took turns mixing.

The oven was then preheated and we begin to bake our cake! Since the recipe was slightly altered, we baked the cake for around 12 minutes and then in increments so we do not over or under-bake. Arham used gloves to take the cake out of the oven to the table, where we set up a towel to prevent the table from being burnt. Emily then tried to flip the cake over onto a plate, but because there was not enough oil on the sides of the pan, the cake did not fall out easily. Throughout the process of flipping, most of the “lava” chocolate part fell out. Although it looked a bit less like a lava cake, it was still delicious… so we made another one along with some cupcakes to use up our chocolate bars.

The second time we baked, everything was more efficient. We made sure to brush more butter onto the cake mold. As we decided to bake cupcakes, I was able to use my knowledge and experiences from my previous cupcake-baking experience to lead that part of the baking process. The second molten lava cake came out much prettier, but the cupcakes were a bit flatter. I think this was because the consistency of the batter for the cupcake was thicker. I tried to resolve this by adding milk, but I think because the recipe was not for cupcakes specifically they did not rise well.

After baking

I was quite surprised by how good the molten lava cake and cupcakes tasted and how the second molten lava cake was successful. It reminded me of my Physics IA, where I was making sugar solutions to find their specific heat capacity. I learned that there is a lot of trial-and-error involved and in order to refine my process, I had to repeat my “experiment” more than once to identify where I can improve. Arham, Emily, and I all found this experience enjoyable and would like to try more baking projects in the future.