Matcha Lava Cake

I feel like we’re getting to that point of the year where we’re celebrating a ton. There’s Halloween. Then Thanksgiving. Christmas. And finally New Year’s. Big celebrations call for celebratory desserts! It’s that time of year when all your food inhibitions go out the window. When I think about celebratory desserts, I think of cakes, and this matcha lava cake screams celebration. It has a chocolate exterior with a matcha interior. My favorite part of this dessert is how the matcha interior oozes out of the lava cake when you cut into it. It’s an unexpected, yummy surprise for the eater.

How this recipe came to be

I came up with the idea for this recipe while watching The Chef Show. This show is a documentary series on Netflix that is a spinoff of the movie Chef. In the show, Jon Favreau and Chef Roy Choi cook up a storm while talking to some cool people. In one of the episodes, they made a chocolate lava cake. Somehow when I saw that, I thought wouldn’t it be cool if it had a matcha interior instead of chocolate. No idea how or why my mind went there but I’m glad it did because I absolutely love what came of it.

What is a chocolate lava cake?

When I first learned about chocolate lava cake, I learned that it was a chocolate cake with undercooked cake on the inside. The undercooked cake is the cause of the runny center. But when I watched Chef and subsequently The Chef Show, they had a different take on it. They said that a frozen cylinder of ganache is what gives the inside its oozy gooey center not undercooked cake. And that overall it tastes better than eating raw cake in the center. When I learned the second method, I thought it was a better approach because I also don’t enjoy eating raw cake. In summary, a really good chocolate lava cake has cooked chocolate cake on the outside and a melted cylinder of ganache in the middle.

I decided to make this lava cake my own way by adding matcha ganache in the middle. I have a strong love for matcha cakes, so I thought this would be a great way to make a version of that with this lava cake.

How to make matcha lava cake

Lava cakes are actually really simple to make even though it LOOKS difficult. For this recipe, I swapped out chocolate ganache for matcha white chocolate ganache. I used Aiya Matcha culinary grade matcha powder to make my ganache. This gives the center this green gooey center while the outside is chocolate cake. Here is how you make it (measurements below)!

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. Make the ganache. Heat cream in a saucepan on low heat until warm (~1 minute). Pour into a bowl with the chocolate and matcha powder. Mix together until well incorporated and put the bowl in the freezer to harden.
3. Brush ramekins with melted butter and coat the inside with sugar. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet.
4. Add butter and chocolate to a small bowl and melt in the microwave. Heat in 30 second increments until the chocolate and butter are melted. Set aside.
5. Mix eggs, sugar, and vanilla in a separate bowl.
6. Pour about 1/3 of the melted chocolate into the egg mixture to temper it. This means we are bringing the temperature of the eggs up, so they don’t cook. Once tempered, add in the rest of the melted chocolate.
7. Add in 3 tablespoons of flour and mix well.
8. Add about 1-2 tablespoons of the mixture to your ramekins, so that it just covers the bottom. Then use a 1 teaspoon cookie scoop to drop spoonfuls of the matcha ganache into the center of each ramekin.
9. Top off the ramekins with the rest of the cake batter until it just reaches the bottom rim.
10. Bake for 12 minutes.
11. Let cool for about a minute after it’s out of the oven.
12. Use a knife to release the cake from the sides of the ramekin. Put a plate on top of the ramekin and flip everything 180 degrees so the ramekin is now standing upside down. The cake should come right out onto the plate.
13. Sprinkle powdered sugar on top before serving.

Tips on how to make the perfect matcha lava cake

There is really no way to screw up this recipe, but it does look intimidating at first. If you are unsure about how your cake is cooking, take one out of the oven about a minute before time is up and cut into it. Check if the cake is cooked and the ganache is melted. If there is undercooked cake, leave it in about a minute or two more. It’s always best to make extra cake especially if you’re making it for house guests, and it is your first time making it. If you have any questions, comment below or DM me on Instagram!

Did you make this matcha lava cake?

If you made this dish, I would love to see!

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Thank you to Aiya Matcha for sponsoring this post.