Perfect Chocolate Lava Cake At Home

Rich, gooey lava cake topped with a vibrant, tangy raspberry sauce. You’ll want to make this sweet treat again and again.

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Chocolate lava cake looks complicated, but it’s one of the easiest desserts you can make at home. We’ll start by making our whipped cream, which includes heavy cream, powdered sugar, vanilla bean paste, and a little pinch of salt. Whisk this for about 1 and 1/2 to 2 minutes, but make sure not to over whip. That can make your whipped cream a little bit too heavy and chunky. I like to finish it up when it looks something like this. We’ll cover this up in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge until our lava cakes are done. We’re moving on now to make our raspberry kiwi. This is basically just a raspberry sauce that will help to cut through the richness of the chocolate with its fresh and tangy sweetness. First, very important, taste a raspberry. Sometimes they’re tangier, sometimes they’re sweeter. That’ll help us know how much sugar to add to the sauce. Along with the raspberries, we’ll add a touch of water, a nice sprinkle of sugar, a pinch of salt, and the zest and juice of one whole lemon. What we’re creating here is a sauce with lots and lots of acidity to help cut down on all the sweetness and richness from the chocolate. Now, with our heat over medium low, we’ll mash up the raspberries and begin to mix everything together. Heating them up here is going to break all our raspberries apart and help to thicken up our sauce. Let this heat for about 3 to 5 minutes until the berries dissolve and the sugar softens. If at any point you need to add a little bit more water to loosen things up, you absolutely can. That also helps to delaze the pan and scrape off any extra bits of flavor on the side. Once our sauce is nice and thick, we’ll move it right off the heat and into a strainer and then press with a spoon to push out all that liquid, which will thicken up as your raspberry sauce cools. We’ll toss this in the fridge, uncovered, and move on to make our lava cake. The first step to making the lava cakes themselves is preparing our ramicans. First, take some softened butter and brush all of the inside of each ramkin, making sure to hit every little nook and cranny, even getting all the way to this top part right here. Once you’ve checked carefully to make sure every angle is fully coated, add a scoop of cocoa powder to each ramkin and spin it around, moving it in any and every way you need to make sure it gets fully coated with that powder. And when you think each one’s done, give it a good whack to get out any excess cocoa powder. The purpose of adding the cocoa powder is to make the ramicans non-stick, but in addition, it also gives a nice clean look to the finished lava cakes. Doing this over a bowl also ensures we can reuse the cocoa powder throughout this process, and it does tend to get a little bit messy. To make the batter for our lava cakes, we’ll start out with some chocolate. One fun tip is to cut your chocolate with a serrated knife, cuz it grips into the chocolate really easily and makes sure you don’t get hurt. Cut your chocolate in whatever way you want. Remember, the smaller you cut it, the faster it’s going to melt, so running your knife through that chocolate a few extra times certainly isn’t going to hurt. Once it’s chopped, toss it into a heat proof bowl along with some cubed butter as well as a little bit of espresso powder. Bakers often use espresso powder in chocolate desserts because it brings out even more chocolatey flavor from the chocolate. Transfer this bowl over a double boiler and then stir constantly, always scraping down every inch of your bowl until the chocolate and butter have fully melted together. What we’re making right here is called a ganache. This is what gives the lava cake its lava. You’re looking for a beautifully silky smooth chocolate liquid like this. Once finished, transfer this off the heat. Add in some vanilla bean paste and stir to combine. Let this cool for 10 minutes while you prep your final ingredients. If you have one of these big mixers at home, bring it on in for this part here. We’re going to add three whole eggs plus one additional egg yolk to our bowl, as well as some sugar and salt. And then with the whisk attachment, we’ll mix for 4 to 5 minutes at medium to high speed until the mixture is doubled in volume and gets pale and fluffy. We’re done with our mixer now, so you can move that off to the side. And then we’ll add the flour to our chocolate and whisk until no clumps remain. Next, very carefully, we’ll pour the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and then gently fold it all together to combine. Our goal here is to get it fully and evenly mixed all while popping the fewest number of air bubbles possible. At the same time, though, you also want to stir until no chocolate streaks remain. Your batter should eventually look like this. And when it does, you’ll want to divide it evenly between four 4 oz ramicans, smoothing out all the tops as needed. The more evenly you do this process, the more evenly they’ll bake. These are going to go in the oven at 450 Fahrenheit for about 9 minutes, but every oven’s different, so keep a close eye. And here we are. I know what you’re all thinking. We need to see the lava. I’ll make this quick. Place your plate over the top of your ramkin so you can flip the entire thing over in one swift motion. Before pulling off the ramkin, we’ll give the lava cake just a moment to release. When ready, lift your ramkin away carefully. Then, light dusting of powdered sugar, whipped cream, and raspberry koolie. And finally, it’s time for the moment of truth. That is how you make a lava cake at home. Now I got to clean all these dishes. [Music]