These chocolate molten lava cakes harness the delicious power of Nutella combined with melted chocolate for the perfect chocolate-hazelnut flavor!
Just 7 ingredients and surprisingly easy to make!
★ Why You’ll Love this Recipe ★
Perfect for celebrating a special-occasion
This fancy dessert is so easy yet is worthy of celebrating an anniversary, birthday, a good report card, promotion or just because!
This recipe makes 4 individual cakes so it's great for a family or you can cut the recipe in half for just 2. Hello, date night in!
Enjoy these single-serving cakes warm out of the oven with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Add fresh strawberries and/or bananas for the perfect compliment to this Nutella-lover's dream dessert.
★ Ingredients You'll Need ★
You'll need just 7 unique ingredients to pull of this impressive dish.
- Eggs. You'll use whole eggs as well as additional egg yolks for richness. I prefer corn-fed-hen-laid eggs. They have better flavor.
- Chocolate chips. You can use semi-sweet, milk chocolate or a blend of both. Your choice!
- Hazelnut spread. A.k.a. Nutella! I have tried off-brands and they are much sweeter and more powdery tasting so if you can swing it, go for the Nutella brand of hazelnut spread. It's a little pricey but worth it and you don't need much.
- Powdered sugar. Just your standard powdered sugar. I don't sift mine but I try to break up any lumps I see with a fork.
- Vanilla extract. Real vanilla extract rather than imitation is going to give you much better flavor. So again, if you can swing it, splurge for the real deal.
- Flour. All purpose flour. Wheat flour is fine too.
- Butter. To grease the ramekins so they slide out easily on the first try. You can also use cooking spray or Baker's Joy. Just grease generously so the cakes release easily an in one piece without spilling any of the "lava"!
I've seen other recipes with fewer ingredients but I think you sacrifice some flavor and texture. These cakes have a full depth of flavor and that drippy lava-like center with a cakey outer shell.
I wanted this to still be a super easy recipe with very few ingredients but I didn't want to leave out anything that takes away from the flavor.
★ How to Make this Recipe ★
The process is pretty simple but the timing has to be just right, so be sure to use a timer.
Here are the basic steps involved. (Check out the full recipe below for more details)
- Grease ramekins.
- Microwave butter, chocolate, and Nutella. Stir to combined.
- Stir in powdered sugar until dissolved, eggs, vanilla and flour.
- Fill ramekins with batter and bake.
- Turn cakes upside down onto a plate and top with ice cream.
Pretty simple! You can do it!
★ FAQs & Tips ★
You will need a set of ramekins.
You'll want a set of 4 standard sizes ramekins that are oven safe. If you don't have ramekins, you could potentially use a muffin tins but you'd need to make them one as a time or use a cupcake liner in order to easily get them out and flip them onto a plate.
Don't have ramekins. No worries you can find them are most cooking stores or shop ramekins on amazon.
Garnish with strawberries, bananas and/or mint leaves.
Strawberries make a really pretty garnish and are great for that romantic vibe. They also taste wonderful with the Nutella and chocolate. A combination of strawberries and bananas also looks nice and tastes great. Bananas along won't look as pretty but they do taste lovely.
Raspberries is another option that looks and tastes great. Truly any fruit works.
However, if you're fresh out of fresh fruit and happen to have a mint leave, that make a fun garnish too.
Other Topping Ideas
Since these Nutella lava cakes are perfect for celebrating special occasions, have some fun matching the toppings to you occasion!
Celebrating an anniversary? Try ice cream with a drizzle of chocolate syrup and two sparklers!
Celebrating a birthday? Try ice cream and colorful sprinkles!
Celebrating Valentine's Day or another holiday? Try holiday themed sprinkles!
You truly can't go wrong here.
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Chocolate-Nutella Lava Cakes
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter plus more to grease ramekins
- ¼ cup semisweet chocolate chips
- ¼ cup Nutella hazelnut spread
- 1 ¼ cups powdered sugar
- 2 eggs
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup all purpose flour
Toppings
- 4 scoops vanilla ice cream
- 4 strawberries
- 1 banana sliced (optional)
Instructions
- Grease 4 ramekins with butter and set on a baking sheet.
- In a large glass bowl, microwave butter, chocolate chips, and Nutella for 1 minute. Stir with a fork until combined.
- Stir in powdered sugar until dissolved.
- Stir in eggs, egg yolks, vanilla.
- Stir in flour.
- Fill each ramekin with an even amount of the batter. Bake at 475˚ for 17-19 minutes or until tops are no longer shiny. Remove from oven. Using rubber tongs, carefully move hot ramekins to a cutting board and let cool for 1 minute.
- Slide a butter knife along the outside edge of each of the cakes in the ramekins to loosen.
- Place a plate, upside down on top of each ramekin, then turn over so that the cake drops from the ramekin onto the plate. Gently shake to loose if necessary being careful not to break the cake!*
- Top each cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and strawberries then serve immediately!
I try this right now. My first lava cake and is amazing!! One question: Can I use just nutella instead 1/4 of chocolate chip(1/3 cup of nutella)? Or what do you recommend? Thanks!
Hi Dayana, so glad you liked it! A half and half mixture of Nutella/chocolate works best in my opinion. It would be very sweet and not very rich in flavor if you used all Nutella.
Amazing!
Hi Sophia, so glad you enjoyed the recipe!