How to produce the perfect Lemon LAVA Cakes

I love the suspense of watching how a chocolate lava cake unfolds, but my taste is generally more into butter, vanilla, and citrus flavours. I wanted the experience of a lava cake but wanted it to be tasting citrus. So I searched for such a recipe and it turned out there are a lot out there, I was excited to try that out, however it wasn’t an easy thing to do as I thought it would be.

I have failed 3 times before I saw the LAVA coming out, the fourth time was literally underbaked LOL because it was too liquidy, the fifth time was the perfect LEMON LAVA CAKE

This is the fourth attempt:

So here is the thing, this was not the perfect Lava cake I sought, it was underbaked, but it was the first time I have witnessed the phenomenon and I thought; Oh then it is possible! Because I nearly lost hope of getting the result after following everything the recipe asked for, but it is pure baking art! and I LOVED the challenge.

The first three attempts’ results tasted VERY good, looking like a lemon muffin, or like a soufflé, purely flavourable and moist, but we want the LAVA cake 😊

Now let’s go to the good part:

Here’s the recipe I followed:

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 425°F. Butter 8 six-ounce ramekins. Place on baking sheet. Set aside. (This is the bigger size ramekins (250ml), you’ll notice that I recommend the smaller size when you keep on reading down below)

In a large microwave safe bowl, microwave white chocolate and butter for 1 minute. Stir and continue microwaving in 15 second intervals until melted and smooth.

Once melted, whisk in flour, powdered sugar, lemon curd, lemon zest and vanilla extract. Add eggs and egg yolks, whisking until well combined.

Divide evenly among prepared ramekins. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the edges are set. Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes.

Run a butter knife around the edge of the cake to loosen the cake. Invert onto serving plate and top with powdered sugar. Serve immediately.

https://www.dixiecrystals.com/recipes/lemon-lava-cake

But before you dive into that part and become very excited, there is a preparation step that you need to do before starting, it is time-consuming, which is preparing the lemon curd, but the good news is that you could store it in the fridge (no more than 5 days I’d say) although they say up to 2 days, but I found it holding very well, and I keep coming back and use from it, the quantity is so much, I did two full parts one lemon, the other is orange (I just felt like inventing one 🙂 ). What I have noticed that the lemon one is thicker than the orange one (I think this is the higher citric acid content of the lemon and its interaction with sugar). The other thing I wanted to say, is that the successful LAVA cake was with the lemon curd because my repetitive trials were made with the lemon one. I think the orange curd has slightly different properties and needs to be tested separately.

Now the Lemon Curd recipe I followed is this one. It is supposed to be less calories, and also done by a real Chef.

For the art of making the perfect Lemon LAVA Cake, you need to be flexible and witty especially when using different sizes of ramekins:

1- The size of the ramekin matters, so pay attention to this part when it comes to the baking time.

2- I have two sizes of ceramic ramekins:

• Small-sized, about 9 cm (3.5 inches) diameter and take up about 150 ml of liquid volume. This size is the perfect portion size, in my opinion, you don’t need the bigger size unless you are sharing with another person <3
• The bigger size I have is the 11 cm (4.5 inches) diameter and 250 ml volume.
• The perfect LAVA cake I got was with baking it in the smaller ramekins I have.

3- The recipe calls for 15 – 20 minutes bake, no no no, that’s too much for the small-sized ramekins, and you’ll not get the intended result, you’ll end up with a lemon muffin or soufflé. But, if you are using the bigger size, you need to start testing probably at minute 13 (in a similar way testing for the small sized explained in # 4 – 8 below).

4- What I have noticed, is by minute 10, I could open the oven and look at the edges and the middle section of the mix, the edges will start to look darker, also watch for the middle part, you don’t want that to be super jiggly.

5- Leave until minute 12, then turn off the oven.

6- Leave for one more minute in the oven while it is turned off.

7- Remove from the oven and leave outside for another minute.

8- By minute 14 (all together), flip the ramekin and serve!

9- Another note I learned is that the oven should be set to BAKING, not Convention because 425 °F baking is equal to 400 °F (a good kitchen tip generally).

10- This is to be served right away, meaning, if you have invited guests over, you will need to start the baking 15 minutes before serving. If you bake it too soon, the middle part will hold up and becomes solid, the same way when you intend to soft boil an egg but then leave it out to cool down for a long time, before you crack open and eat it, you won’t get the soft core, instead it solidifies. But, the good news is, you could fill your ramekins with the mixture and store it in thr fridge for days, and when you are ready to serve, heat your oven up, throw your stuff in, and viola.

11- And finally, here is the final perfect Lemon Lava Cake I got:

It is your turn to try it out 😉

Here is a fun trivia I found for you 🙂

LANGUAGE NOTES

There’s only speculation as to where the English word “ramekin” came from, as there are many plausible explanations. One is that it came from a Germanic language, such as German or Flemish, and means “little cream” (“ram” being “cream” in German; “kin” being a suffix that means “little.”)

You may also see it in English spelled in French fashion as “ramequin.”

In French cookbooks several centuries old, ramekin can refer to a small piece of bread that is fried and garnished.

https://www.cooksinfo.com/