Chicken Noodle Soup for the Sick Kid and Birthday Cake

Yesterday was Angela's birthday, so I decided to make some dinner to celebrate instead of going out to a restaurant like we usually do for our birthdays. It was a stressful day because I had just gotten back from my trip and found out that the kiddo was sick (viral infection, but thank goodness not strep). Since he had been so sick, I had promised him that I would make some homemade chicken noodle soup. It turned out pretty yummy and Nathaniel ended up eating 1 1/2 bowls of it.

I ended up making Chicken Spaghetti for the adults since Angela likes pasta, chicken and cheese (and since she hadn't had it yet), but I tried out a new recipe for her birthday dessert. I didn't think that I would have enough time to make dessert for the birthday girl since I was taking care of the sick kid, but I ended up whipping it up right before they got to the house.

Molten Chocolate Cakes I found this recipe in Food & Wine magazine while I was flying back from D.C. and figured that it would make a great birthday dessert. This recipe was delicious, but I did have some issues with it because I left it out sitting while the spaghetti was cooking in the oven, which made a couple of my cake's fillings mix in with the chocolate and not be gooey in the middle. I did have one perfect cake (that the birthday girl got) and a semi-perfect one (that Blake ended up with). Even the non-perfect cakes were yummy, just not picture perfect. I am sorry to say that I forgot to take a picture of the filling oozing out of the cake. If you do make this, be sure to make it before you are going to pop it in the oven. It's not going to be the same if you let it sit out. Also, I used large muffin tins instead of the ramekins (my ramekins are pretty small and I wanted bigger cakes). Since I couldn't get 70% cacao chocolate at the grocery store, I used 60% cacao Ghiradelli chocolate (which still produced a great chocolatey cake).

The other great thing about this cake recipe is that you can change the fillings. They aren't listed on the online recipe, but I'll be nice and post them on there for my readers.

1) Caramel Filling-- Replace the peanut butter filling in each cake with 1 heaping teaspoon of cold store-bought caramel sauce and a sprinkling of flaky sea salt (I used this one, but forgot the salt. It still tasted wonderful).

2) Raspberry Filling- In a small bowl, coarsely mash 16 raspberries with 4 teaspoons of seedless raspberry preserves. Replace the peanut butter filling with the raspberry filling.

3) Marshmallow Filling- Replace the peanut butter filling in each cake with 1 tablespoon of marshmallow fluff--use a slightly moistened spoon to prevent the fluff from sticking.

Everyone loved these cakes (including Nathaniel who overcame his sore throat to eat one). This recipe is actually easier than it sounds, so give it a try! Happy Cooking!