Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes
The 1990s restaurant dessert at home: individual chocolate cakes baked hot and fast so the outside sets and the center flows when you cut in, with a make-ahead option.
The lava cake has two inventors and one argument. Jean-Georges Vongerichten says he invented it in New York City in 1987, when he pulled a chocolate sponge cake out of the oven too early and found the center runny but warm and good, Wikipedia reports, citing the food writer Sandra Machlin. He is credited with making it a fixture of American restaurant dessert menus in the 1990s. In France, the chef Michel Bras dates his coulant au chocolat to 1981, after a family ski day and more than two years of testing, and the Michelin Guide tells that story. Bras's version is built differently, with a frozen ganache core hidden in the batter, according to his restaurant's site as cited by Wikipedia, and the pastry chef Jacques Torres has said such a dessert already existed in France in the 1980s. Wikipedia adds that the two recipes are very different, and that the easier American one spread further. Compare France's whole-cake mi-cuit in our French Mi-Cuit Chocolate Cake recipe.
🇺🇸 This one is American
The 1990s restaurant dessert at home: individual chocolate cakes baked hot and fast so the outside sets and the center flows when you cut in, with a make-ahead option.
🇦🇹 The original
Vienna's original is a dense chocolate sponge spread with apricot jam under a hard, glossy chocolate glaze, served with unsweetened whipped cream. See the Sachertorte (Viennese Chocolate Apricot Torte) recipe.
📖 Origin story: Who Invented Molten Chocolate Lava Cake? Two Chefs Claim It →
Why it works the kitchen science
Eggs whipped to a ribbon
The air beaten into the eggs gives the cakes a light, set shell even though there are only 2 tbsp of flour.
High heat, short time
At 400°F the outside sets in 12 to 15 minutes while the middle never gets hot enough to firm, which is the whole trick.
Step by step
- Step 1
Mix the softened butter and cocoa into a paste and brush it inside eight 6-ounce ramekins. Heat the oven to 400°F with a rack in the middle.
- Step 2
Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over barely simmering water, stirring until smooth. Take it off the heat.
- Step 3
Beat the eggs, yolk, vanilla, salt and sugar on high speed until nearly tripled, very pale and falling from the whisk in a thick ribbon, about 5 minutes in a stand mixer or 10 with a hand mixer.
- Step 4
Scrape the eggs onto the chocolate, sprinkle the flour over and fold gently until evenly colored. Divide among the ramekins. (Make-ahead: wrap each in plastic and foil and refrigerate up to 8 hours or freeze up to 1 month.)
- Step 5
Set the ramekins on a rimmed baking sheet and bake 12 to 15 minutes (11 to 14 if refrigerated; bake frozen ones without thawing), until puffed about 1/2 inch above the rims with a thin crust and a center that jiggles slightly when you gently shake one.
- Step 6
Serve in the ramekins, or run a paring knife around each, turn it out onto a plate, wait 1 minute and lift off the ramekin. Serve right away with whipped cream or berries.
Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes
Serves 8 · 8 individual cakes · 35 min total
Ramekins
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
- 1 tbsp cocoa
Cakes
- 8 oz (227 g) semisweet chocolate, chopped coarse
- 8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 4 large eggs
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup (99 g) granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
To serve
- Lightly sweetened whipped cream, berries or powdered sugar
Method
- Mix the softened butter and cocoa into a paste and brush it inside eight 6-ounce ramekins. Heat the oven to 400°F with a rack in the middle.
- Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over barely simmering water, stirring until smooth. Take it off the heat.
- Beat the eggs, yolk, vanilla, salt and sugar on high speed until nearly tripled, very pale and falling from the whisk in a thick ribbon, about 5 minutes in a stand mixer or 10 with a hand mixer.
- Scrape the eggs onto the chocolate, sprinkle the flour over and fold gently until evenly colored. Divide among the ramekins. (Make-ahead: wrap each in plastic and foil and refrigerate up to 8 hours or freeze up to 1 month.)
- Set the ramekins on a rimmed baking sheet and bake 12 to 15 minutes (11 to 14 if refrigerated; bake frozen ones without thawing), until puffed about 1/2 inch above the rims with a thin crust and a center that jiggles slightly when you gently shake one.
- Serve in the ramekins, or run a paring knife around each, turn it out onto a plate, wait 1 minute and lift off the ramekin. Serve right away with whipped cream or berries.
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen's "Individual Molten Chocolate Cakes". Amounts, the eight 6-ounce ramekins, 400°F, the timing, the jiggle test and the make-ahead method are America's Test Kitchen's. This is a modern home recipe, not Vongerichten's or Bras's; neither chef's recipe was available to us. America's Test Kitchen. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (3)
Tips
- Watch the jiggle, not the clock. A minute too long and the center sets; if it does, you have a very good chocolate cake.
- Serve them right away. The center keeps cooking from the heat of the cake.
- The cocoa-butter paste helps them release cleanly when you unmold them.
- Soft center, raw eggs: see the Food safety baseline.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Jean-Georges Vongerichten invented the lava cake in 1987. Disputed: he says so (Wikipedia, citing Machlin 2011); Michel Bras dates his coulant to 1981 (Michelin Guide), and Jacques Torres says the dessert existed in France in the 1980s.
- It was invented by accident. Disputed: Vongerichten's accident story is his own account; Bras says his took two years of deliberate testing.
- The center is just raw batter. Folklore: in the American style it is underbaked batter; in Bras's style it is a separate ganache core (Wikipedia). Both are deliberately soft, so see the Food safety baseline.
- Lava cakes can't be made ahead. Documented as false by America's Test Kitchen: refrigerate the batter up to 8 hours or freeze up to a month.
Every other chocolate cake
Sachertorte (Viennese Chocolate Apricot Torte)
Vienna's famous chocolate torte: a light, dark chocolate sponge split and filled with apricot jam, brushed with more jam and covered in a glossy poured chocolate glaze, served with unsweetened whipped cream.
Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Cake)
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