This keto lava cake has a deliciously decadent gooey molten chocolate centre. A quick keto dessert with only 5 ingredients! This easy recipe is is gluten free, low carb and sugar free and contains only 2.8g net carbs per portion.
Who doesn't like a chocolate lava cake? Especially when it's a totally guilt-free, sugar free keto lava cake?
But first things first.
Jump to:
What is a chocolate lava cake?
Glad you asked. It's a single serve chocolate cake that is under-baked so the inside stays uncooked, molten and soft. You eat it warm and straight from the oven. It's wonderful with a scoop of sugar free vanilla ice cream, but equally good all on its own.
Is molten chocolate cake safe to eat?
In the UK it's safe to eat raw eggs that are produced under the Lion code of Practice. However, in some countries you still need to worry about salmonella in raw eggs. But there is no need to worry about this cake: The bacteria is killed instantly at temperatures over 160F / 70C. Which means the hot gooey centre is perfectly safe to eat!
5 Ingredients for Keto Lava Cake
The best things in life are simple. And this low carb lava cake is one of them! In fact, you only need 5 ingredients for this easy sugar free dessert. Let me go into more detail:
1. Chocolate.
Get the best you can afford, with a high cocoa solids content. 90% is great, or go the whole 9 yards and get 100% unsweetened chocolate.
This is a generously sized dessert and if you're interested in keeping a low carb count, this will make a difference. It will also affect the taste - a cheap choccie full of vegetable oils just won't make you swoon.
I used 100% unsweetened chocolate, so added 3 ½ tablespoon sweetener. If you use 90% chocolate, 2 tablespoon sweetener works well. Adjust accordingly if your chocolate already contains sweetener. If you're in the US, Lily's sugar free chocolate is always a good option.
2. Butter.
Organic, grass-fed is what we're looking for here. I love the buttery taste of this dessert. But if that's not your kind of thing, you can sub with virgin coconut oil.
3. Almond flour.
The almond flour for your gluten free lava cake should be super-fine. Almond meal or ground almonds are too coarse and will alter the texture (would still work though).
4. Eggs.
Beat them till they're FLUFFY!
5. Sweetener.
Make sure you choose powdered sweetener and not granulated. Erythritol blends, Bocha Sweet or allulose all work. Stevia drops would work in this recipe too.
Taste your batter and adjust the sweetener according to the type of chocolate you're using. I've given my measurements in the notes. As we all have a different perception of what the perfect sweetness is, do whatever rocks your boat here.
Low Carb Lava Cake Variations
Simply adjust the baking time depending on how runny you would like the centre of the Keto lava cake. Here are your options:
Molten lava cake - 9 minutes
This is the texture I aimed for. After 9 minutes, the cake will be set at the top and on the sides and bottom, but the inside will be molten chocolate batter. When you cut it with a spoon, the gooey enter oozes out.
When you gently shake the ramekin you'll see the insides jiggle!
Note - in traditional ceramic ramekins the lava cake may take an additional minute as they have thicker walls than the metal ones I used.
Moist and gooey lava cake
11-12 minutes: If you don't like the idea of a soft, runny centre, simply keep the lava cake in the oven for a further 2 minutes. After 12 minutes you have a moist keto chocolate cake that is fully cooked through.
Baker's Top Tips
If you want to invert your lava cakes onto a plate, grease your ramekins REALLY WELL! If you are only after the taste, there's no stress - just serve in the ramekins.
My ramekins measured 2 inch at the bottom and 3 at the top. If you want to make 1 larger portion, you might need to increase the time in the oven by 2-3 minutes.
Do not over-bake! The top needs to be set, but jiggly. My first round of cakes baked for 12 minutes and they were firm in the middle. Don't deprive yourself of that gooey centre 🙂
But even more importantly, don't be afraid to take this cake out of the oven when it's still super-jiggly.
It'll keep on cooking and firming up in the hot ramekin so serve it as soon as you can touch it with your hands to turn it out onto a plate.
Serving Suggestion
Eat these cakes straight out of the oven! If you leave them in the ramekins for long, they will continue to cook and set more than you might like.
This keto lava cake is delicious enough, gooey enough and wonderfully chocolatey enough to create a romantic moment any day of the year. I imagine it would be great with a scoop of sugar-free ice cream.
How To Store Keto Lava Cake
Chocolate lava cake with a molten centre should be eaten hot and straight from the oven.
It is possible to prepare the batter ahead and store it in the fridge overnight. Be sure to bring it back to room temperature before you bake it.
Another option would be to bake the cakes for 11-12 minutes until you have a fudgy keto chocolate cake. Store in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
More Chocolate Keto Dessert Recipes
- Chocolate Fat Bomb Recipe (Keto)30 Minutes
- Sugar Free Chocolate Mousse40 Minutes
- Keto Chocolate Cake40 Minutes
- Sugar Free Chocolate Birthday Cake1 Hours
Tried this recipe? Give it a star rating below!
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Recipe
5 Ingredient Keto Lava Cake (Low Carb)
from Sugar Free LondonerNote: The servings slider only changes the first amount in each line and not any subsequent amounts. Please make your own calculations where necessary.
Ingredients
- 2 oz unsweetened chocolate (55g), at least 85% cocoa solids
- 1 tablespoon super-fine almond flour ***see notes
- 2 oz butter unsalted, plus more for greasing ramekins
- 2 eggs
- 3.5 tablespoon powdered sweetener or more, depending on the chocolate you use - see notes
Instructions
- Heat oven to 175 Celsius/350 Fahrenheit.
- Grease 2 ramekins with butter.
- Melt the chocolate and butter and stir to combine.
- Beat your eggs well - best with a mixer.
- Add to the chocolate/butter mix together with almond flour and sweetener and stir. You'll get a dough-like consistency that is pourable.
- Pour into 2 ramekins.
- Bake 9 minutes until the top is set but still jiggly. Do not over-bake!
- Turnout onto plates and serve with a dusting of powdered sweetener and pomegranate seeds or a couple of raspberries. A mint leaf would round off the look nicely!
Juanita
The best keto lava cake ever
Tina
Hi Katrin,
Made the chocolate lava cake tonight for the first time. It was really good! I was very conservative on the sweetener (I used MonkFruit) because I was afraid it was going to be too sweet, so I used less than half the quantity recommended in the recipe). Next time I will add more. It was the first time I made a keto dessert but I'm sold. Will definitely continue ... (lol) Thanks, Katrin! The next one is the pumpkin brownie.
Katrin Nürnberger
Glad you liked it! And good for you that you used less sweetener. Too little is always better than too much! The pumpkin brownies have a lot of friends, so hope you'll like them, too!
Petra Jorgensen
Hello, a general question here: what is your opinion on using the new, up & coming, sweetener Allulose? How can I substitute Allulose for Erythritol? Thanx much.
Katrin Nürnberger
Hi Petra, you can substitute erythritol with allulose 1:1. Allulose creates soft, moist baked goods so it would work well in this recipe. I've only used it in caramel so far, which I'll post soon - it does not re-crystallise like erythritol can, so it's perfect for anything liquid. However, if you want to make anything with a crunch, like cookies, then erythritol would be better.
Daniela
Hi Katrin,
I want to make these for our anniversary dinner tomorrow, but wonder, what size exactly are your ramekins?
Do the cakes rise while baking?
I could either use Muffin molds or 15 oz ramekins and wonder if I have to double the recipe or the ramekins.
Thanks!
Daniela
Katrin Nürnberger
My ramekins measured 2 inch at the bottom and 3 at the top. They hold 6.5 oz water filled right to the top.
Caroline Nielson
Hi Katrin,
Thanks so much for this recipe! It was absolutely delicious and my husband and I thoroughly enjoyed
them. I decided to top them with some cream. Very yummy 🙂
Next time I'm going to try using orange oil so they can be my Terry's chocolate oranges 🙂
Loving all the deserts I've missed since starting Keto last August.
Hope you're staying well in the UK. I actually originate from Reading.
Caroline
Katrin Nürnberger
Orange chocolate = love it, too. We're holding up fine here, thanks 🙂 Wondering when it will be all over ???
Wantrice
I halved the recipe to avoid leftovers and it turned out perfectly. I made a little raspberry sauce to drizzled on top, and it was great!
Thank you for the recipe, it's definitely a keeper!
Katrin Nürnberger
Mmmmmh, I love the idea of drizzling this cake with a raspberry sauce. Great idea!
Rachel
If not eaten in one day, what is the best way to store these?
Katrin Nürnberger
I would keep them in the fridge 🙂
April Arizmendi
My ramekins are in the oven right now...
So I have no idea how they'll taste baked,
But I gave the five star rating because the dough is phenomenal! I don't like overly sweet desserts and I love unsweetened chocolate, so this is a perfect combination in my opinion.
Katrin Nürnberger
Haha, half the fun of baking is licking the bowl!!!
Bharat MV
How much of cocoa powder and cocoa butter should I use to make 2 oz of dark chocolate? I make homemade chocolate. So would like to directly make the dark chocolate liquid using cocoa powder and cocao butter.
Katrin Nürnberger
This is the recipe I use to make my own low carb chocolate. I'd use this as a guide and calculate the amounts from there 🙂
Tuija
I used 99% chocolate and fine almond flour. I used 3 ceramic ramekins. For some reason not even 12 minutes baking time was enough. The top pf the cakes were brown and dry but the insides were totally runny. I wonder what went wrong.
Katrin Nürnberger
Hi Tuija, there are 2 reasons I can think of. One is that you baked on a high shelf where the oven temperature is higher and therefore the tops browned too quickly. Plus your ingredients were too cold, especially the eggs, which means they would take longer to bake and stayed too liquid. However, this cake is SUPPOSED to be runny on the inside...
Tuija
The eggs were room temperature but I wonder if the chocolate/vegan butter mixture was too warm and I should've taken more time to cool it down...
Katrin Nürnberger
Possible. I try to heat my chocolate only to the point where about half is melted. Then stir and let the rest melt slowly. It's also possible that the vegan butter was the issue, it contains more water (as it's essentially margarine, correct?) and would be more liquid than butter when melted.
Tuija
Thanks! I have dairy allergy so I can’t use butter. Would coconut oil work better than margarine?
Katrin Nürnberger
It would be worth a try. The two are normally interchangeable.
Tuija
I tried again with handwarm chocolate/coconut oil mixture and 1/3 level in the oven and I'm happy to say that it worked 🙂
Katrin Nürnberger
Result!! So glad you tried again 🙂
Rabab Haider
Can I substitute almond flour with coconut flour
Since my son is allergic to almonds. Also please can you advise how much coconut flour can be substantiated. Thanks.
Rabab
Katrin Nürnberger
Hi there, I would sub with 1 teaspoon of coconut flour.