Instant Pot Chocolate Lava Cake Favorite Family Recipes

Instant Pot Chocolate Lava Cake

Instant Pot Chocolate Lava Cake comes together in just a few minutes, and made with simple ingredients. This is the best dessert to whip up when it’s late, you’re wandering around the house craving something sweet and a handful of chocolate chips from the pantry just isn’t going to cut it. It just as easily can be a centerpiece dessert after a special Valentine’s Day dinner. Super versatile, gooey, and full of chocolate flavor, this is one of my favorite chocolate cake recipes!This Chocolate Lava Cake just happens to be one of our favorite things to bake right in the Instant pot. No need to heat up your ovens for this treat. It’s the perfect dessert for Valentine’s Day or any other special occasion!

What’s In Lava Cake?

Lava cake ingredients are actually very simple. Chances are, you probably have everything you need in your pantry right now! Here’s what you need:

Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips – I like to use semi-sweet but you could add dark chocolate, milk chocolate or a combination of both.Unsalted butter- for the perfect consistency, you’ll melt the butter with your chocolate chips.Sugar – regular, granulated sugar for the recipe. You can dust some powder sugar or a dusting of cocoa powder on top if you like.Eggs – use both the egg yolks and the whites for this recipe.FlourVanilla – use good quality vanilla extract

Toppings for Chocolate Lava Cake

Once you have your cakes, you can top them any way you like!

Spoon caramel sauce over the topDust with cocoa powder or confectioners’ sugarTop with fresh berries and a dollop of whipped creamAdd a big scoop of vanilla ice cream to the hot cake. It’ll melt nicely into the cake.

Getting The Right Consistency

Do you like your chocolate lava cake with more melted chocolate lava flow like chocolate cake batter or do you like your cake gooey, but a little more in tact? The center “lava” consistency depends on the amount of time it is cooked. In the picture above, I cooked the lava cake in the Instant Pot for 8 minutes. In the picture below I did 9 minutes with a 1 minute slow-release.

Tips for Instant Pot Dessert Recipes

Dessert in the Instant Pot or a pressure cooker can be tricky. Trust me, this recipe came about after three failed attempts to pressure cook. With Instant Pot desserts you need to be fairly exact with your cooking times. You also need to consider that cooking times will be different at different elevations.When cooking dessert or anything in the Instant Pot, you need to make sure you have enough liquid. To make this easier, I like to place the steam rack in the instant pot first. Then, I like to add a couple cups of water to the bottom. Lastly, I place the dessert containers on the steam rack. This places the 6-ounce ramekins up out of the water and makes them easier to remove from the Instant Pot when they are finished.Since this molten lava cake recipe makes 4 dessert cups, you will have to place 3 cups on the bottom and one cup over the top (as seen in the picture below). Don’t worry, they will all still cook perfectly, even if they are stacked!I cooked these Chocolate Lava Cakes for 8 minutes and did a quick release. I live at a fairly low altitude so this time was perfect for me. If you are at a higher elevation, you may want to add a minute to the cook time or allow to slow-release for a minute or two. Just don’t let it slow release for too long or it will over cook and you won’t get that liquid chocolate center. Serve immediately!

Variations and Additions to this Recipe

For this recipe I like to use dark chocolate because I think it makes it extra rich. You are adding sugar to the batter so it will still be plenty sweet. If you simply won’t use dark chocolate or if you don’t have it, you can also use semi-sweet.If you aren’t a fan of having fruit with chocolate, instead of adding raspberries, you can drizzle a little salted caramel or whipped cream to the top.We don’t drink coffee, but a little espresso powder in this recipe enhances the chocolate flavor and tastes absolutely delicious.If you’re a peanut butter fan, melt some in the microwave and drizzle on top of the chocolate lava cake.This recipe uses VERY little flour. Only a quarter cup! That is great news for those who are wanting to make a gluten-free version. Just swap out the flour for your favorite GF flour and you are good to go! If you have a good GF flour, you won’t even be able to tell the difference because the flour amount is so small. Namaste flour from Costco works great or if you have a homemade flour blend that you like, that will work great too!

More Decadent Chocolate Desserts

If chocolate is your love language, welcome to our blog! We are huge chocolate fans here too. Try one or all of these sinfully sweet and rich chocolate treats next time the craving hits.

Instant Pot Chocolate Lava Cake Favorite Family Recipes