Month 1 day 3: Fettuccine with Mushrooms and Hazelnuts and Molten Chocolate Cakes

Today I made:

Fettuccine with Mushrooms and Hazelnuts, Cooking Light January/February 2011

served with lightly steamed green beans.

This was easy and quick to put together; boiling water for fettuccine took the most time. Hazelnuts are toasted briefly in butter then set to the side, and then mushrooms and garlic are sauteed up. Sage and copious amounts of parmesan are added at the end. The hazelnuts made it taste special, since they're not an everyday ingredient. Our only complaint was that the ratio of pasta to toppings was off, but then we realized that it called for a 9-ounce package instead of the 1-lb box we used in entirety. So there you go. Lightly steamed green beans (I keep wanting to type "green beens" or "grean beans") are an under-appreciated side-- they're great on their own and it's hard not to snack on them! They would be even better with some lemon zest and butter. The key is not to overcook them.

We're keeping this recipe too.

Edit:
And then I made molten cakes from an old recipe from ABC cooking studio in Japan. Yum!

First I made the ganache center and froze it while I made the batter. The batter also started with a ganache base, which was folded into a merengue. Just a bit of flour and cocoa were added at the end. I got to use a new silicon cake mold from Target which worked quite well and didn't stick at all! If you'd like me to translate the recipe, please comment.

Edit #2: The recipe (makes six cupcake-sized cakes)
First make the ganache: Mix 60 g milk chocolate (I used chocolate chips), 30 g cream, and 12 g unsalted butter in the top of a double boiler or a heat-proof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir until melted and remove from heat. Add in 1.5 tsp grand marnier and cool by placing the bowl in ice water (I didn't do this part). Separate into 6 equal-sized balls/plops and tie up individually in Saran wrap. Place in the freezer for 20-30 minutes.
Next make the batter: Mix 90 g milk chocolate, 90 g cream, and 30 g unsalted butter in the top of the double boiler and stir until melted. Remove from heat and add in 3 egg yolks (keep the whites aside). Add 1.5 tsp grand marnier and stir. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat the 3 egg whites with a handmixer until fairly foamy (sorry I don't know how to translate this description) and add 11 g sugar. Keep beating until soft peaks form that bow when you pull up the mixer and add another 11 g sugar. Keep beating until stiff peaks form. At that point, beat one more minute on low. Pour about 1/3 of the merengue into the chocolate mixture and mix with a spatula. Then, pour the chocolate mixture into the bowl with the rest of the merengue and stir gently just about 5-6 times, taking care not to pop all of the air bubbles in the merengue. Sift in 15 g each of cake flour and cocoa powder. Stir gently 7-8 times. Then sift in another 15 g each of cake flour and cocoa powder and stir gently until you can no longer see powder.
Fill cupcake liners about halfway full with batter. Remove the ganache from the plastic wrap and put in the center. Cover the top with the rest of the batter.
Bake at 170 C for 13-15 minutes in a gas oven or 180 C (~350F) for 15-18 minutes in an electric oven. Top with powdered sugar once cooled (if you can wait that long before eating it! ;) )