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Seriously delicious, especially with some banana “nice cream” or homemade coconut whipped cream on top. The Instant Pot makes this dessert so easy because you can stick it in while you’re eating dinner! I’m considering adding some peanut butter to my next batch, to *test* it out. Update: I totally added peanut butter and cooked them in egg bite molds!
Ingredients in Instant Pot Chocolate Lava Cake
- eggs
- ghee or butter
- dark chocolate chips
- coconut milk (or almond if you prefer)
- rice flour or whole wheat flour
- salt
- honey
- baking powder
- cocoa powder
- additional dark chocolate chips for the center (optional)
Making a single serving? Adjust the serving size in the printable recipe below!
Are these lava cakes gluten free?
Yes! The brown rice flour is gluten free. If you use whole wheat flour they will not be gluten free.
Instructions for Healthy Lava Cakes
1) In a large microwave safe bowl add ghee and dark chocolate. Microwave in 30 second increments until chocolate is melted, no more than 1 minute.
2) Whisk in the remaining ingredients into the melted chocolate and butter.
3) Lightly grease 4 ramekins with coconut oil. Fill each ramekin 3/4 of the way with batter. If you would like to add additional dark chocolate into the center of each cake, fill half way add a few pieces chocolate, then top with batter to the 3/4 full mark. Cover each ramekin with foil.
You can also use milk chocolate or semi sweet chocolate, but know that it will change your calories and Weight Watchers SmartPoints–make sure to recalculate.
4) Add the trivet or a steamer to the bottom of the Instant Pot with 1 1/2 cups water. Arrange the ramekins on top of the trivet with 3 on the bottom and one stacked on top in the center.
Lock the lid into place and turn the pressure valve to sealing. Cook the lava cakes on high pressure for 4-5 minutes. 4 minutes will leave the center very gooey, while 5 minutes will have a little more cake texture around the center.
5) Release the pressure using the quick release method. Remove the ramekins by placing a small plate upside down over the top of the cake bowl, then gently flipping over. Your lava cake might break open on the bottom but that’s ok.
6) Serve while hot. Top with homemade coconut whipped cream or fresh banana ice cream.
If you have any questions about the techniques used to make this recipe, take a peek at the Lava Cake video recipe in this post.
What do I serve with chocolate lava cakes?
To keep it healthy, I love serving these with fruit, homemade whipped cream (recipe is linked above), or banana ice cream. You can also top these Molten Lava Cakes with powdered sugar, coconut sugar, or drizzle with peanut butter.
The sky is the limit for topping these chocolate lava cakes–just think about what type of flavors that you like with chocolate!
Can I make this Instant Pot Lava Cake for 2? Or 6? Can I make more than 4?
Absolutely! In my printable recipe, you can easily slide the serving size to adjust for how many cakes you’d like to make. You’ll need to test the cooking time a little, though, as I haven’t made more or less than four cakes at a time myself.
How do you test the cook time in the Instant Pot?
When testing a recipe in the Instant Pot I always start with less time than I need. If I am way under, I add the food back and add more time–it comes back to pressure much faster than the first time. If it’s just a little but undercooked I add it back to the pressure cooker and close the lid and I don’t add more cook time–it’ll continue to cook.
Next time I make the recipe, I add a minute or two if the food was just a bit undercooked and add several minutes if the food was pretty undercooked the first time.
Under cooking in the Instant Pot is much easier to fix and guess again than over cooking–it’s almost impossible to tell how much cook time to take off when something is over cooked.
Can I make this Instant Pot Lava Cake without Chocolate Chips?
You’ll need to use chocolate of some kind for the base recipe–baking dark chocolate, chocolate pieces, etc. But adding the extra chocolate chips to the center of the cake is optional–it just makes it a little gooier and creamier.
Not cooking the cakes all the way and not using chocolate chips in the center is not the best idea because of the raw eggs in the batter–instead of a chocolate filling in the center of the lava cake, you’ll end up with an undercooked center which isn’t a good idea to eat.
You could also add other baking chips (butterscotch, peanut butter, etc) but they’re not usually clean ingredients so I didn’t add them to my recipe.
Are these 21 Day Fix lava cakes?
As soon as you introduce chocolate into a recipe it becomes a treat swap. Why? Since chocolate isn’t on the food list, but it’s on the list for treat swaps.
Treat Swaps allow those who follow the 21 Day Fix to have a ‘treat’ three times a week in place of a yellow container. I try to keep my treats clean and around 200 calories.
These lava cakes have about 300 calories each so while I’d eat these as a treat swap, I wouldn’t do so every week or probably every month. These are great for special occasions like a birthday or celebration.
I’m going to count this as a treat swap: 1 cake = 1 treat swap. The calorie count is a little high, so I wouldn’t eat these super often if you’re trying to lose weight. They’re definitely a healthier treat, though.
Weight Watchers Plan Points:
1 Cake (Recipe Makes 4) | 12 Blue Plan Points| 13 Green Plan Points | 12 Purple Plan Points
I had an Instant Pot Lava Cake fail–do you have any tips for cooking these?
I’ve had many lava cake fails! One might think it’s easy to simply undercook something but it’s really not–you have to make sure the bottom and the top of the cakes are cooked enough to hold the liquid center without breaking.
- I highly recommend cooking this recipe a few times in your pot to perfect your cook times before making this for guests. This is a great recipe, but might require you to increase or reduce the cook time by a minute or so depending on your elevation and a few other factors.
- Like I’ve mentioned before, there are differences between Instant Pots. Some differences are the size of your pot and how hot or cold your pot is–when you’re talking about a minute difference in cooking time, it’s important to know how your pot cooks.
- If your lava cakes are under cooked, cover them again with foil and put them back in the pot. Close the lid, but do not turn the pot on. Give it a minute or two and then take them out again–they should be perfect.
- If your cakes are not gooey in the middle, you can cook them for a minute or two less next time.
- If you are having trouble getting the times to work right for your recipe it might be the location difference! See this post about high altitude cook time adjustments.
Looking for more Instant Pot recipes for dessert?
These are some of my favorite healthy Instant Pot dessert recipes:
- Brown rice pudding I love making this classic recipe and recently gave it a healthy update! It’s perfect for breakfast or dessert, and it’s so easy to customize with different toppings and different levels of sweetness.
- Healthy Lemon Bars I love lemon and lime flavors, and these lemon bars are one of my favorites on my site. I’ve also made this recipe with limes, and it’s just as delicious. Lots of coconut products are used, and that flavor definitely comes through.
- Key Lime Custard Bites These are the most fun to make! I love how pretty they are, and how the whipped cream topping tops them perfectly.
Loving these recipes? Make sure to follow me on Pinterest for the best healthy recipes.
Printable recipe for these Healthy Lava Cakes:
Instant Pot Lava Cake | Healthy Lava Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 4 tbsp ghee or butter
- 1/4 cup dark chocolate pieces
- 4 tbsp coconut milk or almond milk
- 1/3 cup rice flour or whole wheat flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- additional dark chocolate for the center optional
Instructions
- In a large microwave, safe bowl add ghee and dark chocolate. Microwave in 30 second increments until chocolate is melted, no more than 1 minute.
- Whisk in the remaining ingredients into the melted chocolate and butter.
- Lightly grease 4 ramekins with coconut oil.
- Fill each ramekin 3/4 of the way with batter. If you would like to add additional dark chocolate into the center of each cake, fill half way add a few pieces chocolate, then top with batter to the 3/4 full mark.
- Cover each ramekin with foil.
- Add the trivet or a steamer to the bottom of the Instant Pot with 1 1/2 cups water. Arrange the ramekins on top of the trivet with 3 on the bottom and one stacked on top in the center.
- Lock the lid into place and turn the pressure valve to sealing. Cook the lava cakes on high pressure for 4-5 minutes. 4 minutes will leave the center very gooey, while 5 minutes will have a little more cake texture around the center.
- Release the pressure using the quick release method.
- See blog post for description of how to easily remove cakes. Serve while hot. Top with coconut whipped cream or fresh banana ice cream.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Make This Recipe?
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This sounds great! I would love to make this tonight. I have coconut flour, would that substitute for the rice flour? Or should I whiz some white rice in my Vitamix dry container to make rice flour?
I was wondering the same thing…. I guess nobody checks the comments on the page :(
No, I’m sorry—it’s not that nobody checks the page. But with hundreds of posts and comments to check on it’s easy to miss one.
Yes, coconut flour would be just as delicious :)
What if I don’t own an instant pot? Is there another cooking method?
This looks yummy. Where do get the dark chocolate pieces. Thanks!
I got mine at Frys!
By coconut milk do you mean canned coconut milk or coconut milk beverage? If it is the latter, have you tried almond milk too?