Also known as Molten Lava Cakes, these are single serve chocolate cakes with a liquid chocolate centre. The idea of cutting open a chocolate cake to find melted chocolate oozing out has always seemed an exotic way to eat dessert.
Unfortunately all the recipes that I have come across for molten-centred cakes have involved baking the cake batter till the outside of the cakes cook but the middle would be partially cooked resulting in a semi-solid centre. I honestly didn’t think I wanted to make molten lava cakes where the “molten” part of the cake was created by half cooked batter!
Then last month Sra gifted me a book called Everyday Chocolate with about a hundred recipes, every single one with chocolate. I’m not exaggerating. It has 256 pages, and if you take away a few pages (for the contents, introduction, indexing and all that stuff) there’s one recipe every two pages.
So what I wanted to say was that, in this book, there was a recipe for molten-centred chocolate cakes where the centre was actually molten chocolate and not uncooked batter!! I came across Anita’s Molten Chocolate Cakes with chocolate ganache centres. These centres are guaranteed to melt and can be flavoured according to choice.
So I made my Molten Lava Cakes with a chocolate ganache flavoured with orange. The chocolate ganache centres are inspired by Anita’s recipe while the recipe for the Molten Lava Cakes are adapted from Everyday Chocolate.
Molten-Centred Chocolate Cakes
Ingredients
For the Chocolate Ganache Centre :
- 1 cup chocolate Dark semi sweet chips
- 1 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsps cream (25% fat)
- 1 tbsp orange finely grated zest
- 1/2 tsp orange extract
For the Lava Cake :
- 60 gm butter at room temperature
- 1/4 cup caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup flour
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/3 cup chocolate ganache (from above)
- icing sugar , for dusting
Instructions
- Make the orange flavoured chocolate ganache first. Melt all the ingredients over boiling water till smooth. Keep in the freezer for an hour till firm. Scoop out into balls and keep refrigerated until required. This amount makes a little more ganache than required for the cakes. The extra chocolate ganache keeps in the freezer.
- Now make the cakes. Put the butter, egg, flour, baking powder and cocoa in a bowl and whisk together, till just smooth.
- Spoon half of the batter into paper cases or greased muffin tins. Make a small indentation in the middle of each cake with a spoon. Place a ball of chocolate ganache in each indentation. Spoon the remaining batter on top covering the chocolate.
- Bake at 190C (375F) for about 20 minutes till springy to touch and the top of the cake is slightly crusty. Stand for 2 to 3 minutes before removing from the moulds.
- Invert onto serving plates and serve warm dusted with sifted icing sugar or cocoa powder.
I'm Aparna and My Diverse Kitchen is my ovo-lacto vegetarian food blog where you'll find recipes, food stories & photography. I've been blogging since 2007 and believe the kitchen, and the dining table (by extension) is really the heart of a home. 
Aparna,I thght this was for Alice and I was thinking still 3 more days.I had made the same cake-choc pudding cake in ramekins for Alice and will be posting on Sunday.Its very good and blast of chocolate.Mine actually looks rustic though,one may think it came from rabbits hole 😀 😛 Congrats on your rain of awards Cheers
Wow my daughter has been asking me to make a cake like this for ages. Till now I haven’t done it.Yours look so yummy delicious.And that last pic is so tempting.WIsh i had that right now.
This looks so delicious! Molten lava:)
I’m so glad this book helped a dream come true and right! I’ve just downed a few chocolates and want more – in my defence, they were all bite-sized.
Aparna, I’m blown away with your stunning “Molten-Centred Chocolate Cakes” – I’m in choccie heaven viewing these delights!!Rosie x
wow these look yummy!! i love lava cakes. i’ve never made them from scratch though. i would always use this betty crocker box and they were just to die for.
WOw cakes looks sooooo fabulous…am a great addict to lava cakes..great Aparna..
I love the way the molten lava comes out from inside…
Aparna, This is a wonderful recipe and I have bookmarked it. Love to impress my friends.Must be tasting awesome with orange flavored ganache. Wonderful!
The chocol oozing out is simply divine 🙂
Aparna, first of all congrats on the well-deserved awards :-)The molten cake looks awesome. I used to goto Chilli’s just to have this. I never even thought that it can be made at home. You’ve really inspired me now 🙂
fabulous…i can only just imagine biting into the gooey centre….
Aparna these kinds cakes are my all time fav thanks for the recipe
it looks awesome … i would love to dig into it right now
Beautiful and baked to perfection. Nice job.
This looks sensational! Great pics. The molten center looks so sinful.
Oh my…that looks divine! I’m gonna have to make it some time. Thanks for posting.
I’ve been wanting to make these for so long, that it was a dream come true when I saw the chocolate oozing out so perfectly. And its easy to make.Absolute choccie heaven, Rosie.:)Thanks again, Sra.:D
can v subtitute faxseed or condensed milk for egg in this recipe?
Payal, I think you left a comment here (at least it in my inbox) but it seems to have disappeared when I moved to a custom domian!To answer your question, you can replace the egg with flax seed, but I do not think condensed milk would work.
Hi Aparna!! Love the idea of putting ganache in the middle and baking the cake.. drool..drool:-)) One more of ur many recipes I HAVE to try!!