This recipe is so delicious and perfect for sharing since it makes two lava cakes! The trick to lava cakes is baking them until the outside is cooked fully, but the inside is still gooey - that is how you get that lava texture! I used my homemade healthier version of Nutella, but you could definitely use regular Nutella as well! You can also use a seed butter instead of nut butter to make the chocolate hazelnut cake nut-free. The amount of maple syrup you add to this recipe depends on how sweet you want it, and how sweet the chocolate you use is - it’s up to you! This recipe is one of two lava cakes I made as part of a collaboration for Valentine’s Day with Pointe Studio - check out my self-care themed blog post with them for more!
I used Koia cacao bean plant-based milk in these - it's one of my fave healthy drinks and adds great chocolatey flavor to this recipe!
Ingredients
Makes 2 small lava cakes
Wet:
2 flax eggs (2 tbsp ground flax mixed with about 5-6 tbsp water, and refrigerated for at least 5 minutes until thickened)
½ cup vegan Nutella
¾ cup chocolate milk of choice (I used cocoa bean Koia)
2 tbsp maple syrup
1/3 cup vegan butter/spread (I used Earth Balance), melted and cooled
About 1 tsp vanilla extract
Splash of almond extract (optional)
Dry:
5 cups white whole wheat flour (or all-purpose flour)
4 tsp baking powder
2 cup cocoa powder
Dash allspice (optional)
Pinch of salt (optional)
Steps
1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Prepare flax egg and set aside in fridge.
2. Mix the wet ingredients together in a large bowl.
3. Add in the dry ingredients and use a hand mixer to combine. The batter will be fairly thick and dense.
4. Spoon the batter into a well-oiled miniature cake pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until just the top and sides are firm, but a toothpick inserted into the middle isn’t fully clean – you want the center to be still gooey!
5. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes. Enjoy while still warm!
I made a larger batch of this version for a Galentine’s Celebration - here are the amounts you would use to make 9-10 small cakes! Follow the same instructions as above.
Notes:
I actually ran out of the Earth Balance so I only used about a ⅓ cup of that, and then used olive oil and one spoonful of coconut oil to make up the remainder of the 1 cup of the oil/“butter” - it still worked great! I also ran out of flour, but I had some ground hazelnuts from when I tried to make nut butter with my blender (newsflash - that doesn’t work), so I substituted that for 1 cup of flour. You could get the same results with almond flour - it will make the cakes more moist! But it will also work just great sticking with whole wheat flour like I used in the original recipe since you are just sizing up the batch!
Ingredients
Wet:
8 flax eggs (8 tbsp ground flax mixed with about ¾ to 1 cup water, and refrigerated for at least 5 minutes until thickened)
2 cups vegan Nutella
3 ¼ cup chocolate milk of choice (I used cocoa bean Koia)
6-8 tbsp maple syrup
About 1 cup vegan butter/spread (I used Earth Balance), melted and cooled
4 tsp vanilla extract
Splash of almond extract (optional)
Dry:
1 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ cup cocoa powder
Dash allspice (optional)
Pinch of salt (optional)