Vegan chocolate lava cakes
Who doesn’t know the chocolate lava cake or molten chocolate lava cake, also known as volcano cake? For me, it is simply pure joy, especially on a cold winter day.
My recipe is completely vegan and is actually easier to implement than the original recipe where you have to beat egg yolks and egg whites separately.
These lava cakes are the perfect finish to a dinner party. The rich, delicious cakes are a cross between a soufflé and a brownie. The melted inside drips out when the cake is cut open. The addition of vanilla ice cream is not mandatory, but it is certainly very nice to combine cold and warm together.
The recipe is very simple. You just have to time the preparation well, because you have to eat the lava cakes as soon as they are ready and still warm. But in principle you can mix the dry ingredients in advance and prepare the wet ingredients in advance too. When you and your guests are done with the main course, you can carry out the last steps of the preparation process and put the cakes in the oven.
- Ingredients
- ½ measuring cup of white spelt flour (55 g)
- ¼ measuring cup of icing sugar (50 g)
- 2 tablespoons of pure cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon of baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ measuring cup of vegetable milk, for example almond milk (50 ml)
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (or any other neutral flavoured vinegar)
- ¼ measuring cup of applesauce (50 g)
- 60 g chocolate (I like 50-60% dark chocolate best in this recipe), broken into chunks
- (Optional) ½ tsp vanilla extract
- Vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries or raspberries to serve
Method
In a small bowl, make "buttermilk" by combining the plant-based milk and apple cider vinegar. Let rest for 10 minutes (or longer).
Sift the flour, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda into a medium bowl and mix together. At this point you can just leave the ingredients until you are ready to pop your cakes in the oven. This is because the baking soda reacts immediately with the vinegar. So, it is better not to mix the dry and wet ingredients yet.
When you're ready, preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.
Add the buttermilk, applesauce, and vanilla to the sifted dry ingredients and mix to combine. Do you find the batter a bit lumpy? Then you can perfect it with a stand mixer.
Grease your ceramic or silicon moulds lightly with grapeseed oil or another neutral oil.
Add a scoop of batter to fill the bottom of the mould. Then put ¼ of the chocolate in the centre and cover with another scoop of batter, filling the mould no more than ¾ full.
Make 4 cakes in this way.
Place the moulds on an oven rack and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
In principle, you can serve the cakes directly in the ceramic moulds, if you use separate moulds. If you prefer to serve the cakes on a plate, cut very carefully with a knife between the side of the mould and the cake. Then place the serving plate on top of the mould and turn it upside down and carefully slide the bowl off.
Garnish the chocolate lava cake with a bit of powdered sugar, a scoop of vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries or raspberries.