A super easy, super delicious recipe for Molten Lava Cakes with Salted Caramel Surprise.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Table of contents
Molten. Lava. Cake. Salted Caramel!
Molten Lava Cakes with Salted Caramel Surprise! Tell me that’s not getting you drooling! There is not much else to say about this hot little number, it is terribly addictive! Dark and decadent, I love eating these hot with some (loads!) clotted cream that gives just the right balance to the intense heat you get from the chocolate!
Salted Caramel – sigh… I could eat it with just about anything! How does one begin to put into words the indefinable? Sweet and salty, it’s nectar that will enslave you – you’ve been warned!
I love my molten lava cakes just a little bit more cooked than usual, giving a slightly thicker crust, this is something you’ll want to to experiment with yourself, I bake mine for 10 minutes for it to achieve the stage I like, you could go for anything from 7-10. Experimenting is definitely recommended before serving this up to guests because not all chocolates and not all flours and certainly not all ovens are created equal! Chances are you’ll get it right first time but there is a fine line between perfect and under/over done with these molten lava cakes.
Handy Hints for the best Molten Lava Cake
How do we get the salted caramel surprise? It’s just a case of filling up the ramekins halfway, placing a ball of salted caramel and topping it up all the way to the top, stopping just short of the rim, as these cakes don’t rise. The salted caramel wants to be cold, so that you can roll it into tiny discs before placing in the moulds halfway as they need to be completely covered. A runny caramel will just ooze to the edges.
As these babies are predominantly chocolate, don’t skim on quality, get the best, possibly organic 70% dark chocolate you can get.
Likewise, use good quality vanilla. If not using the bean, always go for vanilla paste if you can find it; this has the fine seeds in and is miles better than a standard good quality extract.
I’ve seen recipes that use oil for these cakes but I am a firm believer of butter is better! And while we’re on the subject of butter, here’s a favourite tongue twister in our house, how fast can you go?
- Betty Botta bought some butter;
- “But,” said she, “this butter’s bitter!
- If I put it in my batter
- It will make my batter bitter.
- But a bit o’ better butter
- Will but make my batter better.”
- Then she bought a bit o’ butter
- Better than the bitter butter,
- Made her bitter batter better.
- So ’twas better Betty Botta
- Bought a bit o’ better butter.
Now, shall we get our aprons on?
If you like the recipe, don’t forget to leave me a comment and that all important, 5-star rating! Thank you!
And if you make the recipe, share it on any platform and tag me @azlinbloor, and hashtag it #linsfood
Lin xx
Molten Lava Cake with Salted Caramel
Ingredients
- 150 g 70% dark chocolate
- 30 g butter regular salted
- 70 g sugar
- 2 large eggs
- ½ tsp vanilla paste/extract
- 25 g plain flour
- 4 Tbsp salted caramel straight from the fridge click for recipe
To serve
- some clotted cream or any regular cream optional
- some fruit – strawberries raspberries
Instructions
- Line and grease four dariole moulds or ramekins.
- Preheat the oven to 200˚C/400˚F.
- Break the chocolate up into little pieces in a large microwaveable bowl and place in the microwave oven at 80% power in bursts of 30-60 seconds until melted. My microwave oven has a power of 1000w and I melt dark chocolate at 80% power and white chocolate at 50% with absolutely no problems. Stir and leave to cool slightly while you get everything else together.
- Cream the butter and sugar until pale, you won't have a fluid mix, it'll be pretty dry at this stage.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 30 seconds between each.
- Add the vanilla and stir with a wooden spoon.
- Fold in the flour with the wooden spoon until just combined.
- Add this egg/butter mix to the melted chocolate and fold everything together. As the chocolate reacts to the liquid mix, it will thicken up considerably.
- Half fill the moulds with the batter.
- Take a tablespoon of your salted caramel and form into a flat-ish disc and place on top of the batter in the moulds.
- Top with the rest of the batter and bake for 8 minutes for just a touch of crust on the outside.
- Serve immediately.