Chocolate Lava Cake – Gluten-Free Sugar-Free Dessert
By Carine Claudepierre
Published on 06/12/2014 - Last updated on 08/12/2024
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This Chocolate Lava Cake is a simple amazing recipe that ticks many of the dietary boxes. It is a gluten-free, dairy-free, and sugar-free dessert. It is a great guilt-free treat for all diabetics around here.
What’s Sugar-Free Dessert?
Sugar-Free Chocolate Lava Cake is a very popular French sugar-free dessert. It’s a simple cake in a ramekin cooked to the point where the top is crusty, but the inside is still molten, like lava. I used a natural sugar sweetener in this recipe. It is a combo of stevia and erythritol that you can measure as sugar, much easier than any other sugar substitute!
There are different brands available on the market. In the US I recommend Swerve or Natvia in New Zealand. If you are a diabetic and constantly looking for a simple sugar-free dessert, I highly recommend this chocolate lava cake recipe.
How To Make Sugar-Free Chocolate Lava Cake
This recipe uses sugar-free chocolate. In New Zealand, I use naturally stevia-sweetened chocolate like Healtheries. Alternatively, you can use a strong dark chocolate, nothing less than 85% cocoa bars of course.
Green and Blacks is a great one as it contains only 20g carb/100g. The last option is to make your own sugar-free chocolate bars.
This sugar-free chocolate lava cake recipe is a really good surprise. The texture is similar to the sugar-loaded recipe I was eating before. A molten heart with a strong chocolate-sweet flavor. Honestly, after eating these, I sometimes ask myself why I did use so much sugar in baking before!
All my new sugar-free baking recipes work so well lately. I love this new clean eating lifestyle.
Baking Gluten-Free Lava Cake
Do not over-bake the cake. For a small ramekin like this 12-15 minutes is enough to have a runny chocolate heart. You can make these chocolate lava cakes ahead. Store them in the fridge unbaked. Bake them just before serving. It is recommended to take them out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before baking.
Obviously, check the baking process very often during the last minutes of baking. You know it is baked as soon as a crust is forming on the top of the cakes. If you insert a skewer in the center, it should come out full of runny chocolate.
More Gluten-Free Sugar-Free Desserts
If you enjoy gluten-free and sugar-free desserts, I have many more for you!
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Sugar-Free, Gluten-Free Chocolate Lava Cake
Ingredients
- 7 oz Unsweetened Cocoa Powder or 85% dark chocolate
- 4.2 oz Unsalted Butter or coconut oil
- 4 Egg
- 1 Egg Yolk
- 2.1 oz Granulated Sweetener or natural sugar free sweetener Natvia in NZ or Truvia in Europe
- 1 oz Corn Flour
- 1 oz Buckwheat Flour
- ¼ cup Unsweetened Coconut Milk or milk of your choice
Instructions
- Preheat oven fan-forced 350°F (180°C) or baking mode oven 400°F (200°C).
- Grease 6 individual ramekins or custard cups.
- In a saucepan under medium heat, melt the chocolate and butter. Stir constantly until fully melted. Remove from heat, set aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl whisk eggs, egg yolks, and natural sweetener until smooth.
- Add the cornflour and buckwheat flour to the egg mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon or a spatula to combine until smooth.
- In another saucepan, under medium heat warm the coconut milk. Don't boil, stop when some bubbles form on the sides of the saucepan. Set aside 1 minute then pour the hot milk slowly onto the egg mixture while whisking vigorously to prevent the eggs from cooking.
- Whisk in the melted chocolate and butter until a smooth chocolate batter forms.
- Fill evenly the 6 custard cups with the chocolate cake batter.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes or until a light crust is forming on the top of the cake and a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out covered with runny chocolate.
- Do not over-bake or the heart of cakes will not be as runny as in the picture.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
Want My Kitchen Equipment?
Nutrition
About The Author
Hi, I'm Carine, the food blogger, author, recipe developer, published author of a cookbook, and founder of Sweet As Honey.
I have an Accredited Certificate in Nutrition and Wellness obtained in 2014 from Well College Global (formerly Cadence Health). I'm passionate about sharing all my easy and tasty recipes that are both delicious and healthy. My expertise in the field comes from my background in chemistry and years of following a keto low-carb diet. But I'm also well versed in vegetarian and vegan cooking since my husband is vegan.
I now eat a more balanced diet where I alternate between keto and a Mediterranean Diet
Cooking and Baking is my true passion. In fact, I only share a small portion of my recipes on Sweet As Honey. Most of them are eaten by my husband and my two kids before I have time to take any pictures!
All my recipes are at least triple tested to make sure they work and I take pride in keeping them as accurate as possible.
Browse all my recipes with my Recipe Index.
I hope that you too find the recipes you love on Sweet As Honey!
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The recipes, instructions, and articles on this website should not be taken or used as medical advice. The nutritional data provided on Sweetashoney is to be used as indicative only. The nutrition data is calculated using WP Recipe Maker. Net Carbs is calculated by removing the fiber and some sweeteners from the total Carbohydrates.
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Can I make these sugar free chocolate lava cakes with regular flour?
I don’t think it will work, almond flour and flour have very different properties. All purpose flour makes food much dryer.
It was such a good recipe I LOVED it
I am horrible at math and would have liked the recipe converted to english measurements as well. Looking forward to trying it though. Hope I converted it right!
Simply click on the metric button before the ingredients to automatically convert the recipe into grams. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
I scoured this entire recipe and couldn’t find anything to indicate what SIZE of 6 ramekins to use. =( They come in multiple sizes and the “standard” is 4 ozs. Did you use 6 4oz or 6 6oz ramekins? Or, how many ounces of batter does this recipe make?
it’s a 4 oz ramekin
Es de gran utilidad compartir tus te estás de postres para diabéticos , es difícil encontrar y bueno , no podemos disfrutar de tantas ricuras.
Gracias por compartir
If I’m not gluten-free, could I just use 2 oz of regular flour? Or maybe 2 oz of almond flour, since I have it on hand?
I recommend you try this lava cake recipe instead. It should be perfect for what you have home Enjoy, XOXO Carine
Looks divine! may i use some other kind of flour as we haven’t got buckwheat here 🙁
You cn swap by wholewheat flour or brown rice flour if you are gluten free. Enjoy! XOXO Carine
Absolutely Fantastic recipe,Thank you
Thank you for trying this recipe ! I am so glad you love the lava cakes Enjoy the low carb recipes on the blog, XOXO Carine.
Carine
Thank you for the recipe but I have a question.
Step 7 on the instructions says to whisk the melted chocolate abd butter to form the chocolate batter.
Step 8 says to pour the chocolate cake batter in the 6 custard cuos.
What happens with the egg mixture??????? does it go in the custard cup first and then we add the chocolate batter
to the egg yolk nuxture already in the cup ?????????
Hello! It says on step 7 ‘whisk IN’ it means you whisk the melted chocolate and butter batter IN your previous egg batter. Then you end up with the full chocolate lava cake batter ready to be baked in your prepared custard cups. I hope it makes sense now! I am French, do my best to write in English so I am sorry if it is sometimes unclear. Enjoy the recipe and thank you SO much for trying my recipes. XOXO Carine.
Hi Carine,
Thank you very muc for this recipe. I can’t have eggs or sugar, so I replaced the eggs with flaxseed+chia eggs. I measured everything carefully but it didn’t work. The cakes didn’t rise at all in the ramekins and I was left a lumpy mess ???? what am I doing wrong? Should I add baking soda? Or perhaps more milk? Please help.
This recipe is mainly made of eggs and I don’t recommend to adapt the recipe to be egg free. It won’t work at all with those ratio that is why I am not suggesting flax egg anywhere in the post. I will let you know if I am coming up with a sugar free egg free lava cake recipe soon. Many thanks for reading the blog! Enjoy the recipes. Carine.
500 calories for ONE?????
This recipe serve 6 chocolate lava cake. One serve contains 336 kcal including a wooping amount of 13.2 g fibre and 11g protein! It is a highly fulfilling healthy sugar free dessert. A regular lava cake has barely 2-3 g fibre and protein. Enjoy the treat. XOXO Carine.
Thank you for this great recipe, Carine. Comme vous je viens de France mais je vis aux Etats Unis. J’ai fait ce dessert deux fois. La premiere fois j’ai laisse les gateaux trop longtemps dans le four. Mon erreur! La conversion de grammes au systeme americain et la temperature du four en sont la cause.
La deuxieme fois par contre a ete une reussite totale. J’aime les farines qui sont saines et ajoutent de la texture. J’ai utilise du beurre et non de l’huile de noix de coco car je n’en avais pas sous la main. Pour le chocolat je prends 80% car cela rend le dessert moins amer et je me mets un tout petit peu moins de sucre. Pour le reste je suis votre recette a la lettre. Je le refais ce soir pour mon fils qui adore les lava cakes. Je me sens mieux de savoir ceux ci pleins de bonnes choses!
Merci encore.
Bonjour Evelyne, Merci pour ce joli commentaire et en Francais (bien rare) sur mon blog 🙂 J’adore ce dessert aussi et je suis contente de lire la maniere dont tu as adapte la recette, ca me donne de idees pour la fois prochaine ! J’espere que tu trouveras d’autres recette encore sur le blog. A bientot, Carine.
Super contente de trouver cette recette, Carine, et de rencontrer quelqu’un de mon pays natal. Comme vous, je vis ailleurs (USA) mais c’est toujours avec plaisir que je croise quelqu’un qui vient de France. J’ai fait votre dessert et ma seule erreur est de l’avoir fait trop cuire. L’autre chose est d’avoir du convertir des grammes en ounces et spoons, etc…
Avez-vous par hasard une conversion parfaite? Je vais refaire ces petits lava cakes car je suis certaine que ce dessert deviendra un favori chez moi. A plus.
Bonjour Evelyne, Bienvenu sur le blog! Quel plaisir d’ecrire un peu en francais 🙂 Malheureusement en NZ nous n’utilisons as les ounces et je mesure toutes mes recettes en unites locale grams, cups etc. Comme tu l’as dit le success de cette recette reside dans le temps de cuisson, queques minutes de trop et le centre n’est plus coulant. Tu peux aussi les preparer a l’avance et laisse les au refrigerateur pendant 1 heure. Ainsi lorsque tu les enfourneras ils seront froid et cuiront moins vite – ca augmente tes chances d’avoir un coeur chocolat coulant meme si tu les cuit quelques minutes de trop. J’espere que tu trouveras pleins d’autres recettes saines et equilibres sur le blog. Au plaisir de te lire a nouveau. Carine.
like the sound of the recipe for Lava chocolate cake do you know how many calories to each serving plz
Hi Anne, I just updated the recipe with the nutrition panel. Those chocolate lava cakes are not ‘light’ in calories – very similar to a regular chocolate lava cake. However, if you watch your sugar intake those contains only 2.5 g of sugar per servings and 13 g of net carbs which means lots of fulfilling fiber too! I created this recipe 3 years ago when I learnt I had prediabetes. It was a great treat with not much sugar. I hope you will give it a try! It worth it. xoxoCarine.
Can I replace the buckwheat flour for almond flour?
Hi Christina, I never tried the recipe using almond flour and I am not sure that the center will be as ‘runny’ as with buckwheat flour but it should work anyway. Let me know how it goes if you try this option. Enjoy! Carine
I was looking at this recipe to make for a friend of mine, but she is also allergic to corn. Could I replace the corn flour with something else? I don’t know anything about baking gluten free/corn free. Thank you!
Coconut flour almond flour and sunflower seed flour are all good substute google them I’ve used it in many recipes although with the coconut flour you use at least twice the amount of liquids…
Oh and buy fresh organic almonds and grind in proccesor store them in the freezer if you buy in bulk keeps them fresh … Sunflowers seeds can be stored in a glass jar and ground up as you need them
Hope I’ve explained that for everyone to understand ☺️
Hi Katie, Sure ! you can use arrowroot powder instead, same quantity and it will work well 🙂 Enjoy ! Carine.
Would this still taste good if I made it non dairy? Like instead of butter I’ll use oil or margarine and instead of dairy milk I’ll use almond milk?
Hi Liat. I would recommend margarine instead of butter, I am pretty sure it will work. I will not use oil as it could change the consistency too much or maybe coconut oil could be ok. Any milk will be ok but I love coconut milk instead of cow milk. I hope it is helpful 🙂 Let me know how it goes ! Carine. xx.
On peut remplacer les 2 types de farines avec de la farine de blé normale?
Bonjour Daiana, Vous pouvez remplacer effectivement remplacer le melange de farine par de la farine blanche mais la recette ne sera plus sans gluten ni aussi nutritive. Le but de melanger des farines riches en fibres et proteines est de rendre le gateau plus sains et equilibres et moins riches en glucides – moins d’impact sur la glycemie et plus adapte au regime diabetique. J’espere avoir repondu a votre question. A bientot sur le blog. Carine. 🙂
Hi, Californian here. What do you mean by “yellow egg”? Is that an egg yolk?
Hi Carin, Yes I meant egg yolk ! I am French and I am doing my best to wrote in English but apologize if sometimes things are unclear. Someday language are just mixing up in my head 🙂 I updated the recipe for you !