Just a few weeks ago, I bribed my son to shoot a Tiramisu cake video for my blog and quite a few people reacted in a positive way. So he is back again, to show you how he makes another simple dessert. This time, it’s a lava cake or molten chocolate cake. Very simple, very tasty, anyone can make this… just the way I like it.

Lava cake is very soft and cakey on the outside, while remaining liquid or runny on the inside. The trick to reach this is very simple and it’s all about the right timing and baking temperature. Bake the lava cake for too long and the “lava effect” is gone.

Is The Lava Cake Raw In The Center?

Not really, although the center remains liquid, the internal temperature is still high enough for the cake to be perfectly safe to eat. But just to be safe, use fresh eggs from a reputable source, that’s always a good idea.

Lava Molten Chocolate Cake Ingredients:

100g butter (unsalted)
90g bittersweet chocolate
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
90g granulated sugar
90g flour (all purpose)
butter
powdered sugar
ice cream
some fruits for decoration

How to make Lava (Molten Chocolate) Cake

Watch the video or scroll down for step by step instructions:

Start by melting the chocolate and butter using the water bath method. The easiest way is to use one large and one smaller pot. Once the water boils, drop in 100grams of butter and 90 grams of bittersweet chocolate. Use some high quality chocolate brand please, this is the base of the lava cake taste! The higher quality chocolate you use, the better the result will be.

TIP: When using really high cocoa content chocolate, you might need to increase the amount of sugar. We used one with 50% cocoa content.

Keep stirring until both the butter and chocolate combine, then let the mixture cool down for a bit. Make sure the mixture doesn’t cool down completely as it would start to thicken up and we need it to stay liquid.

Eggs come next, we need two whole eggs and two more egg yolks. And please make sure you are using fresh eggs. The lava cake batter will reach safe temperature while baking, but better be safe than sorry 🙂

Add 90 grams of granulated sugar and whisk it with the eggs properly. Give it a few minutes, we need the sugar to dissolve completely.

The next ingredient is white flour, all purpose is fine. We are using 90 grams again. Whisk properly until you reach a nice and creamy texture. You can experiment with the flour types, but do not use self raising flour for this lava cake recipe!

Add the lukewarm chocolate and butter mixture now and whisk properly once more.

You should end up with a thick and creamy dark brown cake batter.

My son loves to use a standard muffin pan when making his lava cakes. This one makes 6 cakes and that’s exactly what we need for this amount of batter. You can also use soufflé cups or anything similar that’s safe to use in the oven.

To make sure the cakes don’t stick to the pan while baking, grease the cups with some butter and spread it across the bottom and sides. Then add a bit of flour into each cup and shake it properly to create a nice nonstick layer.

Now it’s time to fill the cups with our lava cake batter. Don’t go all the way to the top, leave some space for the cakes to fill as they will rise while baking.

Preheat your oven to 200C or 400F and we’re ready to bake. The baking time depends on how runny you want the lava cakes to stay in the center. We baked ours for 9 minutes and as you could see in the video embedded above, they turned out great. The baking time should be between 7 and 10 minutes. The longer you bake, the less runny the center will become.

Since we used butter and flour to make the cups non-stick, the lava cakes should go off the pan really easily. You can use a tablespoon or knife to take them out, or gently turn the sheet upside down and the cakes should drop out nicely.

TIP: Once finished, do not leave the lava cakes in the cups and take them out immediately. Since the pan is hot, the cakes will continue to bake.

Now let’s check the inside of the cake. Looking good I think, but if you want it to be more runny, just reduce the baking time by a minute or two.

This lava cake goes really well with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a strawberry slice. Add some fresh mint leaves and dust the cake with powdered sugar to make it look pretty.

And that’s it, our simple lava cakes or molten chocolate cakes are ready to get devoured. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to come back for more simple recipes. Oh and, let my son know how you liked this lava cake recipe in the comments, maybe he will agree to cook some more recipes for you 🙂

Optional Tips For This Recipe:

• You can experiment with the final serving. Try adding chocolate topping, different ice cream type or different fruit types.
• Did you make more lava cakes than you could eat in one go? It’s possible to reheat them later on in the microwave, 15 seconds is enough.
• It’s possible to freeze the cake batter, just divide it into individual portions and it will be ready whenever you crave something sweet. Let the batter defrost before baking.

Looking for some more dessert recipes? Try this Tiramisu cake dessert, simple Basic crepes, Cinnamon roll pie or these Blueberry lemon muffins from Lynn.