Chocolate Melting Cakes

 There are a number of versions of this recipe with slightly different proportions.

Carnival Cruises are known for chocolate melting cakes, and here is a recipe I found shortly after being on a Carnival cruise in 2008:

Carnival Cruise Warm Chocoloate Melting Cake

• 8 oz semisweet chocolate
• 1 c butter
• 7 eggs
• 6 Tbsp sugar
• 1/2 c flour

Preheat oven to 375. Grease 8 oven-safe ramekins. Melt the chocolate and butter together over very low heat. Cool 10 min. In a mixing bowl, whisk 4 of the eggs with the sugar. Add flour and whisk well again. Add the 3 remaining eggs and whisk well. Add the egg mixture to the chocolate mixture and mix well. Divide among the 8 ramekins. Bake for 15-20 min until just done.

I most recently made the version below, which makes a smaller batch (it also has proportionately more sugar- this could be adjusted). 

Carnival Cruise Warm Chocoloate Melting Cake, V2

• 3/4 c dark chocolate chips (I used semisweet)
• 3/4 c butter
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 3/4 c sugar
• 1/8 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 c flour

Preheat oven to 375. Grease 4 7oz. oven-safe ramekins. Melt the chocolate and butter together over very low heat. Cool 10 min. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together, then add vanilla and flour and whisk until well mixed. Combine egg mixture into cooled chocolate mixture. Fill the 7oz ramekins about 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 14 minutes. The cake should be cake spongy on the top but the middle of the cake should be gooey-the consistency of pudding, not too runny. Do not let it overcook.

Note: When I made this recently, I used 6 smaller-sized ramekins to get 6 servings. It's rich, so this serving size was satisfying.

Front Door Planters

Fall look

I've wanted a nice pair of planters for either side of our front door, but wanted them to be low maintenance, so my plan is to try out a few seasons with clippings or faux plants to see how it goes.
Supplies:

• Pair of 27" by 14" Tierra Verde planters from Home Depot, $120. These are made from recycled rubber tires and are supposed to be cold-weather hardy
• 3 bags of wood chip mulch (only needed 1.5), $12
• Birch branches (scavenged from the ground in Two Harbors)

Fall contents:

• $75 worth of faux fall leaves on stems and garland, faux pumpkins and gourds, faux greens and yellow flowers from Hobby Lobby

Set up

These are large planters, and will be quite heavy if completely filled, so I opted to put in a few empty milk jugs and peanut butter jars, etc. in the bottoms, then filled both with wood mulch. I arranged my faux contents in the planters, mounting the faux gourds on stem wires and anchoring the leaf garland with wire.

Filled with mulch and birch branches

Winter contents:

• $25 worth of faux pine, red berries branches and cardinals (which I mounted on wire stakes) from Hobby Lobby
• Red bows I already owned
• Fresh clippings from Home Depot:
• Pair of white-tipped pine cones with pick, $14
• Princess pine bunch, $9
• Noble fir bunch, $9
• 2 Juniper bunches, $18 (these turned out to be pretty dry and monotone- don't get these again)
• Dogwood twigs, $8

Winter look

Next year I'd like to add some more ornaments on stakes, like in this one at Home Depot.

For spring into summer, I purchased $95 of faux flowers and greenery.

April- some greens, too early for flowers (even faux)

Summer