Lots of lava! (Without the guilt!)

I don’t eat dessert too often, but when I do I really love it! After careful consideration I narrowed down my favourite dessert to two. Chocolate Lava Cake and Créme Brûlèe. (I hope I never have to choose between them because I will be torn forever!)   However,  we all know that when you’re trying to either lose weight or keep it off most (if not all) of the trainers, dieticians and fitness pros will tell you to lay off the sweets and  to skip dessert altogether, or to have a bite once in a while but never eat the whole thing! Well… that wasn’t good enough for me!   I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but when I do eat dessert I like to make it worthwhile, and then I feel guilty because of all the hard work I put into working out and getting fit… I don’t know about you but I don’t like feeling guilty, do you? So… in my search for delicious dessert that doesn’t affect the waistline, I found this little gem!

This recipe is adapted from the Hungry Girl newsletter. I really love her stuff but I don’t like the fact that a lot of the ingredients she uses are terribly processed, and as far from “natural” that you can get. I am also not a fan of consuming aspartame or Splenda, you just never know, you know?  So here is the recipe with some minor modifications:

Chocolate Lava Cakes
(makes 4) 

For Filling
1/4 c. sugar free chocolate pudding (approx. one snack cup)
1/2 tbsp mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tsp. light or fat free liquid creamer
1/2 tsp. light whipped butter or margarine (like Becel)

Place chocolate chips in a glass (I used my glass measuring cup) and set aside. Pour the creamer in a microwave safe bowl with the butter and heat in the microwave for about 15 seconds until butter has melted and mixture is very hot.  Pour the mixture over the chocolate chips and stir until the chips dissolve. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes and then add the pudding and stir well. Spoon the mixture into four evenly spaced mounds on a plate and freeze for about 25 minutes until they’ve firmed up a bit.

For Cake
1 cup moist-style devil’s food cake.
1 tbsp baking cocoa
1/4 cup fat free liquid egg
1 tbsp. mini-semi sweet chocolate chips
2 dashes salt

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place chocolate chips and cocoa in a small heat resistance bowl. Add 1/4 cup boiling water and stir well until chips and cocoa have dissolved. Add 1/2 cup cold water and stir well.
Pour the cocoa mixture into a mixing bowl. Add cake mix, egg substitute and salt to the mixing bowl and whip with a whisk or fork for about 2 minutes. Please note that the batter will be quite thin.

Once the pudding mounds in the freezer are a bit firm, spray four baking ramekins (approx. 4 inches in diameter) with a little bit of vegetable oil. Evenly spoon the cake batter into the ramekins. Remove chocolate mounds from the freezer and place one in the centre of each batter-filled ramekin. If the mounds are frozen to the plate, use a sharp knife to “scrape” them off.  Put the ramekins in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. Cakes will look shiny when done.

Carefully remove the ramekins from the oven. You can eat the cake right out of the ramekin (but make sure you let it cool a little bit because it will be very hot), or wait until it has cooled completely and plate the cake by running a knife along the edges and flipping it upside down. Pop it in the microwave for about 15 seconds to heat it back up before serving. 

Personal notes: 
Like I mentioned, I adapted this recipe from the Hungry Girl. I only made little modifications, like using plain cocoa instead of a packet of diet cocoa mix because I don’t like the aspartame in it, nor did I use the sprinkle of granulated Splenda in the batter because I found the cake sweet enough as it was (and because I don’t like using Splenda anyway). I was going to use egg whites instead of the  liquid egg but I actually forgot. I will definitely try it with egg whites next time I make them, you never know if something turns out until you try.
Anywho, I’ve made these 3 times this week for 3 different occasions and all three times I got rave reviews, the best one was from my friend’s husband (who stays away from anything fat-free btw!) who said that just adding a scoop of icecream and you could sell these at any restaurant… now that’s a compliment if I ever heard one!  So there you go, delicious lava cakes at at least half the calories of any of the cakes you can get in a restaurant. I tell you, you won’t be dissapointed!