Molten Lava Cake, Warm Center Chocolate Souffle, Flourless Chocolate Tort Best Recipe

Make that molten lava chocolate cake at home

Submitted by Editor-at-large on March 28, 2009 – 6:52 pmComment

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You’ve had this warm core culinary treasure out at Entrecote Café du Paris or Bateaux, but now you will be able to make it at home on special occasions and it will taste even better than when you had it out.

Every time we make one of these the room is awakened by the strong and enticing aroma of the dark chocolate. When its placed in front of me, I take a moment or so to marvel at is beauty and take in that sensual aroma. Then I put my spoon through the top of the cake–slowly–and watch the hot melted chocolate ooze out.

The good news is that the molten lava chocolate cake is not that difficult to make nor does it require a plethora of ingredients. But it does require superior quality dark chocolate and a patient yet persistent personality (of the cook) to get it right.

There are a number of molten chocolate cake or flour-less chocolate tort recipes on the Internet or in cook books. But most of them are not suited to home baking. We’ve compiled the following recipe together from a number of sources and refined it from experience.

Ingredients (serves four):

5-6 oz (170g) Dark fine chocolate made from at least 60% cocoa butter
6 tablespoon butter
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
½ cup flour
4x 4 oz custard cups (ramekins) for baking
optional: whip cream or vanilla ice cream
optional: four fresh medium sized strawberries

Method:

Preheat oven to 392F (200C).
Lightly butter 4 oz custard cups (ramekins). You can get more than 4 if making smaller cakes.
Melt the chocolate and butter together by putting them in the microwave for a minute, then take them out and stir. Keep microwaving at 15sec intervals till the butter and chocolate are melted and you get a shiny mix of both.
In a separate bowl whisk the eggs and sugar together till they are a bit fluffy.
Add a bit of the chocolate mix to the eggs and sugar mix and beat together to temper the eggs. Then add all the chocolate mix and beat.
Add flour to this mix and combine well.
Pour the batter in the custard cups filling them up to three quarters full.
Place on a baking tray and bake for 10-12min at 200C.
Invert cups on plate and remove the cups after a min or so.
Serve immediately with ice cream.

There are a few key steps and variables in the above method that will dictate how the effort will turn out:

Tip 1: The baking time will directly determine how much of a warm melted chocolate core you will get. If you bake for 10 minutes you will get more of a melted core than if you bake for 12 minutes. You can experiment with the baking time to get the right balance of melted chocolate, especially since there can be variation in ovens.

Tip 2: Baking requires precision. Measure accurately and ensure the baking temperature is correct.

Tip 3: Do not fill the cake mix to the top of the custard cup (ramekin). We have found that filling it three quarter of the way full provides the perfect sized serving for maximum enjoyment.

Tip 4: The quality of chocolate used will directly impact the flavor of the cake. Make sure you used the finest dark chocolate you can find. We have found that 60% cocoa butter chocolate is the best for the most people. If you particularly like dark chocolate, you should use chocolate with higher proportions of cocoa butter. The recipe does not work well with milk chocolate and it is not recommended.

That’s it. It’s really not that hard to make and the reward can be complete gastronomic bliss.

Happy baking!

We want to know how it turned out for you. If you have tried this recipe or have any questions, write us through the comments below.