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Giant Molten Chocolate Lava Cake! A chocolate bundt soaked in hot fudge, caramel sauce, then filled with ice cream and a hard chocolate shell topping. And don't forget the sparklers!

Giant Molten Chocolate Cake

A delicious chocolate fudge-soaked bundt cake, topped with ice cream, caramel, and a chocolate shell.
Course Chocolate, Dessert
Author Tammy Blankenship

Ingredients

Cake:

  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 and 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 2/3 cup dutch process cocoa powder plus more for dusting
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 cup hot water
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Fudge Sauce:

  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 3/4 cup evaporated milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons butter

Chocolate Shell:

  • 4 ounces chocolate
  • 3 tablespoons coconut oil or butter

Caramel Sauce:

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons water
  • 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream at room temperature
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Other:

  • 1 1.5 quart container of your favorite vanilla ice cream

Instructions

Cake:

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter a bundt pan and dust the inside with cocoa powder. Set aside.
  2. Sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl. Set aside.
  3. In a mixer on low add the milk, water, vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla one at a time. Mix until everything is incorporated. Then, with the mixer still on low-speed, slowly add in the dry ingredients. Once all of the flour mixture is added, mix the batter for a full four minutes on medium speed.
  4. Pour the batter into the bundt pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool to room temperature on a wire rack.

Fudge Sauce:

  1. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cocoa, salt and cinnamon. Stir to mix and to eliminate lumps.
  2. Pour in evaporated milk and bring to a boil over medium-high heat; boil for 2 minutes, remove from heat and stir in vanilla and butter.

Chocolate Shell:

  1. Place chocolate in a microwaveable bowl and microwave for one minute. Add butter and microwave another minute. Stir and continue to microwave in 20 second intervals, stirring between until smooth.
  2. If it gets very hot, let sit on the counter for 3-5 minutes to cool slightly. Once it’s liquid but not hot, drizzle over ice cream.

Caramel Sauce:

  1. Put the sugar, water and corn syrup into a medium saucepan. Cook over medium high heat, swirling the pan, but not stirring until the caramel turns an amber color. (If you get sugar crystals on the edge of your pan, use a pastry brush with water and wipe it off.)
  2. Lower the heat and carefully add cream and butter…standing away from pan to avoid splattering. When bubbling calms, stir sauce till smooth. Add vanilla. Pour into heatproof jar. Cool to warm or room temperature before serving.

Assembly:

  1. Turn cake onto serving platter. With a fork, gently poke holes through the cake
  2. Generously slather hot fudge sauce on cake in a few additions, giving some of the sauce time to soak in.
  3. Scoop ice cream into the hole in the center of the cake.
  4. Top ice cream with chocolate shell.
  5. Top off cake and ice cream with caramel sauce.
  6. Serve hot!

Recipe Notes

Dress it Up (Gourmet Style):
1. Add the following (one or all) as additional toppings: strawberry jam, shredded coconut, and your favorite chopped nuts. -C
Dress it Down (Quick n' Easy):
1. Use a boxed cake mix and pre-made caramel sauce, fudge sauce (heated), and chocolate shell for a much quicker version.
2. To simplify further, eliminate caramel sauce or chocolate shell. -C