The Molten Cake Also Rises

“‘You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well. Don’t you find it like that?’”

— Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, page 60

The people in this novel are so damaged. The men, like Hemingway himself, have recently returned from war and are trying to cope with their injuries and nightmares. They spend their time drinking in excess and going on vacations to avoid the real world. They do both in groups to avoid being alone whenever they can.

Their insides are a mess, so it was only fair that I made a dessert that had a messy inside. And, on page 110, they drink a hot rum punch, which, combined with the previous idea, made me think of one dessert: a molten lava cake.

Chocolate needed to be the base of the batter. It's dark, like the novel, and semi-sweet, like the characters. It brings comfort to the people who eat it, which is something that the characters all desperately need.

I couldn't leave it at that though.

"Pernod is greenish imitation absinthe. When you add water it turns milky. It tastes like licorice and it has a good uplift, but it drops you just as far" (15).

I didn't have Pernod or Absinthe, but I had Sambuca, which can come clear or black, and tastes just like a black licorice stick. I have both types of Sambuca, but opted to use the clear Sambuca this time (mostly because it was the first one I found).

I thought about adding a special ice cream, or any kind of ice cream really, and I thought about adding a chocolate sauce of some kind. I thought that was too much though. Hemingway's writing style is distinctive. You can almost always identify his writing from other authors' writing because of how short and simple his sentences are.

Which made adding any more to this cake feel wrong.

Molten Sambuca Lava Cake

-1/2 c  unsalted butter

-6 oz (about 1 cup)  semi-sweet chocolate, in pieces

-1 c  powdered sugar

-2 eggs

-2 egg yolks

1/2 c  all-purpose flour

-1 1/2 tbsp  Sambuca

1. Melt the butter completely.
2. Add the chocolate and stir until it's completely melted. You may have to heat it up a bit more, but be careful not to burn it!
3. Whisk in the powdered sugar. It's going to get thick, but that's okay.
4. Mix in the eggs and the egg yolks.
5. Whisk in the flour until the batter is lump-free.
6. Stir in the Sambuca.
7. Fill four prepared ramekins with the batter (I used the four-ounce ramekins). The cakes will rise, but not very much, so you can fill them almost completely. You can also use muffin tins if you prefer, but I prefer using ramekins so I can flip the cakes out easier.
8. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet, and bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes. The edges should be firm and the top should be soft, but not completely soft.
9. Let the cakes cool for 2-5 minutes, then take a knife and gently run it along the edges of the ramekin to make sure the cakes won't stick.
10. Flip the ramekins over on your plate. The cakes should fall right out.

And that's it. It's really that easy. Make sure to eat them while they're warm, but be careful! They're called molten cakes for a reason. And be even more careful if you're going to let them cool and reheat them later—if you heat them back up for too long, you'll cook the centers of the cake and your lava cake will turn into a regular (but still delicious) cake. Honestly, it's best to just eat them immediately. You're going to want to anyway.