This rich vegan lava cake with a gooey molten chocolate center is made without egg, dairy, or oil, and is even gluten-free! It’s the perfect vegan quick treat for every chocolate lover!
Rich and gooey Vegan Chocolate Lava Cake
I am a “chocoholic” which means I adore everything made with chocolate (anyone else?). Therefore, you have probably noticed that I share a lot of chocolate recipes on my blog. One of my favorite chocolate cakes is this Chocolate Zucchini Cake and this Vegan Chocolate Pie. But I also love smaller chocolatey snacks like these Vegan Chocolate Muffins and these Flourless Chocolate Fudge Cookies.
Even though all these vegan chocolate desserts are super delicious, none of them have a runny chocolate center like this vegan molten lava cake! If you never tried such a treat, you are really missing out!
What is a Molten Chocolate Cake?
According to Wikipedia, “Molten chocolate cake is a popular dessert that combines the elements of a chocolate cake and a soufflé. Its name derives from the dessert’s liquid chocolate center, and it is also known as chocolate moelleux (from French for “soft”), chocolate lava cake, or simply lava cake.”
Traditional molten chocolate cakes contain butter, eggs, sugar, chocolate, and flour. My vegan lava cake recipe ditches the dairy, eggs, and regular flour and instead uses healthier plant-based ingredients like oats, almonds, banana, etc.
The Ingredients
This vegan chocolate lava cake requires just simple pantry ingredients and uses banana in place of butter/oil for a lighter treat.
The Dry Ingredients:
- Ground oats: You can use store-bought oat flour (regular or gluten-free) or make your own, by blending rolled oats into flour. If you aren’t gluten-free, you can also use whole wheat flour.
- Ground almonds: Use store-bought almond flour (100% ground almonds) or make your own by blending blanched almonds into flour. Any ground nuts or seeds (e.g. sunflower seeds) should work, though.
- Sugar: I used unrefined coconut sugar. However, use the sugar of your choice. A sugar-free option like granulated Erythritol may also work.
- Cocoa powder: Use unsweetened cacao or cocoa powder.
- Baking powder + soda: Baking powder and baking soda will provide the lift and texture for this gluten-free vegan lava cake.
- Salt: Just a pinch to enhance the cocoa flavor.
The Wet Ingredients:
- Plant-based milk: Any dairy-free milk should work (almond milk, soy, coconut, cashew, etc.). For a more decadent dairy-free chocolate cake, use full-fat coconut milk.
- Banana: Use a small ripe banana. Unsweetened applesauce may work as a substitute.
- Apple cider vinegar: You can use lemon juice instead.
- Vanilla extract: Use natural, pure vanilla for the best (non-artificial) flavor.
Chocolate Filling:
- Dairy-free chocolate: It depends on the type of chocolate whether you will have a lava-like runny center or not. I did melt 30 grams of dairy-free chocolate chips with 1/2 tbsp coconut milk in a double boiler and poured the mixture into a silicone muffin mold. Transfer it to the fridge for about 30 minutes, or until firm. Then use it like regular chocolate.
How to make vegan Chocolate Lava Cake?
- Preheat the oven to 360 °F (180 °C) and grease one big ramekin (5 1/2 inches diameter) or 4 small ones with oil.
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Process all dry ingredients in a food processor or blender.
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Add the wet ingredients and mix again until combined.
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Pour the mixture into the ramekin and place the chocolate into the center.
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Bake in the oven for about 20-22 minutes. If you use small molds, the baking time will be approximately 15-18 minutes.
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Let cool for about 10 minutes before removing it from the mold. Dust with cocoa powder and enjoy!
How to serve?
This vegan lava cake tastes incredibly delicious even without toppings. Nevertheless, it can be made even more decadent. Here are some serving options:
- A scoop of ice cream (vanilla, peanut butter, chocolate, coffee, etc.)
- Add a dollop of whipped coconut cream and some berry compote.
- Drizzle some nut butter over the top
- Drizzle caramel sauce over it
- A dusting of cocoa powder
FAQs and Recipe Tips
Mini lava cakes: If you have a muffin tin, you could also make mini chocolate cakes or muffins with a lava center. Simply fill the dough into the muffin pan (grease it beforehand) and then put a few pieces of chocolate into each muffin.
Optional add-ins: Add 1/4 tsp of instant coffee powder to the batter for a stronger chocolate flavor.
Flavorings: Boost the flavor of the chocolate lava cake with natural food flavorings/oils like orange, almond, peppermint, etc.
How to store: This vegan lava cake is best enjoyed immediately, as long as the chocolate center is still runny.
More Vegan Chocolate Recipes
- Healthy Vegan Brownies
- Vegan Zucchini Brownies
- Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream
- Chocolate Keto Chia Pudding
- Healthy No-Bake Brownies
- Vegan Chocolate Pudding
- Chocolate Stuffed Pancakes
- Chocolate Stuffed Cookies
Should you give this fudgy vegan gluten-free lava cake recipe a try, please leave a comment below, and don’t forget to tag me in your Instagram or Facebook post with @elavegan #elavegan because I would love to see it.
Vegan Lava Cake
Ingredients
Dry ingredients:
- 1 slightly heaped cup (100 g) oat flour gluten-free if needed (see notes)
- 1/2 scant cup (50 g) almond flour (see notes)
- 5 1/2 tbsp (70 g) coconut sugar or sugar of choice
- 3 1/2 tbsp (20 g) cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 Pinch of salt
Wet Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup (160 ml) plant-based milk
- 1 small (80 g) banana (see notes)
- 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Filling:
- 1.5 oz (40 g) dairy-free chocolate of choice (see notes)
Instructions
- I recommend using the metric measurements (grams) for exact results. You can also watch the video in the post for visual instructions.
- Preheat the oven to 360 °F (180 °C) and grease/oil one big ramekin (5 1/2 inches diameter) or 4 small ones (you can also use silicone muffin molds or aluminum muffin molds or mugs).
- Process all dry ingredients in a food processor or blender.
- Add the wet ingredients and blend again until combined.
- Pour the mixture into the ramekin and place the chocolate into the center.
- Bake in the oven for about 20-22 minutes. If you use small molds, the baking time will be approximately 15-18 minutes.
- Let cool for about 10 minutes before removing it from the mold. Dust with cocoa powder and enjoy!
Notes
- Oats: Use oat flour or process oats (regular or gluten-free) in a blender or electric coffee/spice grinder until you have flour.
- Flour substitute: One reader reported that whole wheat flour works great instead of oat flour.
- Almonds: You can use ground shredded unsweetened coconut (or ground coconut flakes) instead of ground almonds (almond flour).
- Banana: 1/3 cup applesauce might be a good substitute for the banana.
- Chocolate: It depends on the type of chocolate whether you will have a lava-like runny center or not. I did melt 30 grams of dairy-free chocolate chips with 1/2 tbsp coconut milk in a double boiler and poured the mixture into a silicone muffin mold. Transfer it to the fridge for about 30 minutes, or until firm. Then use it like regular chocolate.
- The recipe serves 4. Nutrition facts are for one serving.
Nutrition information is an estimate and has been calculated automatically
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Tried it and absolutely loved it! Made them yesterday and they are all gone so I’m making more already:)
So glad you loved the recipe, Gabrielle. 🙂
Is there any other substitute for applesauce? I’m allergic to banana and apple sauce is not easily available where I live.
You can simply make your own applesauce. Peel and chop 2 apples, add to a saucepan with 1 tbsp of sugar. Bring to a boil, cover the pan, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the apples are soft. Blend applesauce until smooth with an immersion blender.
A flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax seeds mixed with 3 tbsp water) might work too but I haven’t tried it yet. Hope this helps! 🙂
Omg.. What are you doing to meeee… ?????❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Haha, thanks Inna ❤️
If i use regular milk,should i add the vinegar?
Yes!
that looks incredible!
i want to make it today!
can i use liquid sweetner instead?
thank you so much!
I never tried it but it could work. You should reduce the plant-based milk in case you use a liquid sweetener. 🙂
hi, I cant find vegan chocolate chips in my city. Can i make chocolate compound from scratch using cocoa, coconut oil and honey and add the 1/2 tbsp coconut milk as you mentioned.
please do let me know if this will work or please recommend another option.
Thanks a ton!
You don’t have to use chocolate chips, you can use any dairy-free chocolate of choice. But making your own chocolate will work too. 🙂
Are finely ground almonds actually almond flour? Because usually ground almonds aren’r really fine at all! So is it almond flour?:)
Yes! Almond flour consists of 100% finely ground almonds. 🙂
Sorry for the spam haha!
Just had to give an update in case anyone ever would have similar issue- I used tiny bit of coconut oil when melting the chocolate and it turned out perfect! So exciting, this will be repeated MANY times from now!
Yay! So happy it turned out amazing with a little bit of coconut oil! Thanks for reporting back, Maret. That’s actually so helpful and no spam at all! 🙂
Hello! Would using any other plant milk besides coconut milk to melt the chocolate with work?
Also, do you by any chance know how long would the cooking time be in an air fryer?
Yes, absolutely! You can use any other plant-based milk. Unfortunately, I don’t know if the recipe works in an air fryer! 🙂
Thank you for replying 🙂
However, I made it tonight and don’t know what went wrong. It looks identical to yours from outside. But there’s literally no melting from the center 🙁
Still tasty tho!
Hi Maret! Which chocolate did you use? I will copy and paste what I wrote in the recipe notes:
“It depends on the type of chocolate whether you will have a lava-like runny center or not. I have successfully used dairy-free chocolate chips. This is how: Melt 30 grams of dairy-free chocolate chips with 1/2 tbsp coconut milk in a water bath and pour the mixture into a silicone muffin mold. Put it in the fridge for about 30 minutes or until firm. Then use it like regular chocolate.”
I used a good quality dark chocolate 72%. Really only thing I can think of that I accidentally put too much milk in there because everything else was 100% same as the recipe. I will give it another go tomorrow with different chocolate just to see if there is difference. I won’t give up, loved the taste!
Awesome! Enjoy. 🙂
Can I use buckwheat flour instead of oats?
I never tried it but it should work! Let me know if you give it a try. 🙂
This recipe is so easy I love it !! I made it in cupcakes and they are fabulous! Thank you
That’s awesome! Thanks a lot for your feedback. 🙂
Absolutely delicious ! I’ve loved and won’t hesitate to make it again !
So happy you loved the recipe, Enzo! 🙂
Hi Ela, my mum is coeliac and very sensitive to oats regardless if they say gluten free of not. Can normal gluten free flour be used instead?
Sorry, just re-read comments and you have already answered it 🙂
Yes, please give it a try and report back. 🙂
Thank you for a fantastic recipe!! My partner has a massive sweet tooth, but I can’t have any dairy or wheat, which occasionally makes parties and such a bit tricky, so this was absolutely perfect! Really enjoy and appreciate all your other recipes too, thank you so much!!
Wonderful! Would you mind leaving a rating for the recipe? Thank you very much. 🙂
I can’t wait to try this!! Question: Do you think it’s OK to use flour if GF isn’t necessary? I have all of the ingredients on hand except for the oats!
Yes, it should work. I actually mentioned it in the blog post. 🙂
Thank you! I will report back. 🙂
Another delicious and beautiful looking Vegan recipe! Low ingredient recipes are so simple and clean and it’s all already in my pantry. Cannot wait to try it. And thank you for always including substitute suggestions and cooking tips in the notes. Your recipes are the best!
Thanks so much for your kind words! 🙂
My niece is allergic to bananas. Do you have any substitutions for the banana?
Hi Joey! Yes, it’s actually mentioned in the recipe notes. Applesauce! 🙂
Totally missed the notes at the bottom. Thank you so much!
No worries! 🙂
Ela! My gosh this looks decadent, elegant and truly is easy! Brilliant recipe, I can’t wait to try it! Dee xx
Thanks so much, Dee! I hope you will like it. Much love!
This looks amazing! What would make the cake come out more fudgy and gooey?
It’s actually pretty fudgy and gooey depending on which mold/pan you use and how long you cook it. A smaller/taller mold will definitely make it even more fudgy.
Can I use Erytrytol instead of sugar? This cake make me hungry ??
Yes, that should work without problems. 🙂