This Chocolate Lava Cake recipe is a quick and easy dessert – a moist and fudgey brownie cake stuffed with melted chocolate.
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Chocolate Lava Cake Recipe
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and it’s the season for chocolate and heart-shaped everything. We love a delicious and easy-to-make dessert that’s both simple and impressive, and this Chocolate Lava Cake is all those things and more!
Chocolate Lava Cake – the easy way!
Most lava cake recipes are made with lots of eggs and underbaked slightly so the centre of the cake remains a thick liquid and runs out when you cut into it with a fork. They’re generally food safe since the inside of the cake usually reaches a safe temperature, but they can be more labour-intensive to make and they don’t always work out perfectly.
This Chocolate Lava Cake recipe is made the easy way – with a simple fudgey batter and then stuffed with milk chocolate that stays melted for up to 35-40 minutes after the cakes are removed from the oven. It’s the BEST easy way to make lava cake without all the fuss, and it’s SO perfect for chocolate-lovers!
More Chocolate Dessert Recipes
We’ve shared SO many of our favourite chocolate recipes with you before, like this No Bake Chocolate Coffee Cheesecake, this Easy Flourless Chocolate Cake, these Best Ever Double Chocolate Muffins, and this Best Ever Easy Chocolate Cake.
Trust us when we say, this Chocolate Lava Cake is one of the easiest desserts you’ll ever make, and it’s also one of the most delicious!
Kitchen items you’ll need to make Chocolate Lava Cake
The cutest way to make these individual cakes for Valentines Day is in heart-shaped ramekins, of course. Mine are from Le Creuset in Europe, but you can find them here or something similar from a different brand here.
If you don’t have heart-shaped ramekins, simply use any round ramekin with high sides (choose ramekins, not creme brulee dishes which are wider in diameter and have low sides).
To make this recipe you’ll also need:
- a good mixing bowl
- a whisk
- measuring cups and spoons
- a good silicone spatula
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Ingredients for Chocolate Lava Cake
To make this easy dessert you’ll need:
- unsalted butter
- granulated sugar
- brown sugar
- eggs
- vanilla extract
- salt
- flour
- cocoa powder
- high quality milk chocolate bar
How to Make Chocolate Lava Cake
Follow these tips for the perfect chocolate lava cakes!
- Grease the ramekins well.
Greasing the ramekins with butter and dusting the insides completely with cocoa powder is the best way to make sure these cakes pop out without sticking.
- Don’t over-mix the batter.
When you add the dry ingredients, mix only until they’re incorporated. If you over-mix your cakes will deflate while baking and become tough and dry instead of moist and fudgey.
- Choose high quality chocolate.
The quality of the chocolate usually determines how well it melts, which is the key to this recipe. Don’t use chocolate chips here, which are resistant to melting. Choose a high quality milk chocolate bar like Milka or Cadbury, or even baking milk chocolate meant for melting.
- Let them cool for 10-15 minutes.
The cakes will still be quite warm after cooling for several minutes, and the lava centre will still be soft and melted. Enjoy these cakes when they’ve cooled only slightly.
Are lava cakes undercooked?
Most chocolate lava cakes are made with a liquid-y chocolate cake batter and underbaked slightly so the centre remains soft and fluid. This recipe has a melted milk chocolate centre, so it’s fully baked.
How to reheat chocolate lava cake in the microwave
Place the cake on a microwave-safe plate and heat at 50% power for 30-40 second increments until heated through.
Can I make chocolate lava cake ahead of time?
We don’t recommend making it ahead, since the centre should be melted when served. It’s best to bake and serve 15-25 minutes after baking. The lava centre will stay melted for up to 35 or 40 minutes.
We hope you love this recipe as much as we do! Let us know in the comments below, what’s your favourite Valentine’s dessert? We’d love to know!
Looking for more recipes like this? You’ll love these:
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Chocolate Lava Cake
Recipe: Equipment
- 4 ramekins
Recipe: Ingredients
- butter and unsweetened cocoa powder for greasing and preparing the ramekins
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter melted
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 100 grams milk chocolate bar use high-quality milk chocolate – Milka brand, Cadbury brand, or other compound or couveture chocolate
- powdered sugar for dusting, and berries for serving
Recipe: Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 4 large ramekins with butter and dust the inside evenly with unsweetened cocoa powder to prevent the cakes from sticking.
- Add the melted butter to a mixing bowl along with the sugars and whisk together very well.
- Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk until well combined.
- Add the flour, cocoa powder and salt and use a silicone spatula to stir the mixture together just until the flour disappears and everything is combined.
- Divide the batter evenly between the prepared ramekins. They should be about 3/4 full.
- Break the chocolate bar into squares and divide the squares evenly between the ramekins, sinking the squares down into the middle of each of the unbaked cakes. Make sure to cover the chocolate pieces with some of the batter.
- Bake the cakes for about 20-22 minutes or until the cakes are set.
- Let them cool for about 10 minutes in the ramekins before turning them out onto plates. Dust them with powdered sugar and serve with fresh berries, if desired.
Recipe: Notes
Can I make chocolate lava cake ahead of time?
We don’t recommend making it ahead, since the centre should be melted when served. It’s best to bake and serve 15-25 minutes after baking. The lava centre will stay melted for up to 35 or 40 minutes.How to reheat chocolate lava cake in the microwave
Place the cake on a microwave-safe plate and heat at 50% power for 30-40 second increments until heated through.Storage instructions:
These cakes can be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to 4 days. Reheat in the microwave as outlined above.Recipe: Nutrition
Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated, using Spoonacular, for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.
I’d like to make these, but wondering what size ramekins to order. I’m finding a variety of sizes on Amazon—4, 6 and 8 ounces. Thank you!
We use 8 ounce ramekins for this recipe! Aside from the heart-shaped ones that were a gift, we like these https://amzn.to/3FmB93I (affiliate link) Hope this helps ☺️
please in SI metric, can you put the SI metric for European bakers as grams, or dkg or ml
Thank you
Marija
Hey Marija, there’s a button right under the ingredient list that says “Metric”. If you click on that, the measurements will be converted automatically. Let us know how it turns out!