This gooey molten Pumpkin Caramel Lava Cake recipe is spiced to perfection and filled with smooth rich caramel. One of the most unique and best fall desserts ever!
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The Perks and Highlights of the Best Pumpkin Lava Cake
Primary Cooking Method: Baking
Dietary Info: Vegetarian
Key Flavor: Sweet, Rich, Pumpkin Spice
Skill Level Required: Intermediate
Sweet Highlights:
Perk 1: Luscious Lava Flow: The caramel center creates a sensational lava flow, giving each bite an indulgent experience.
Perk 2: Pumpkin Perfection: The pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice harmonize to bring out the best flavors of fall.
Perk 3: White Chocolate Whimsy: it adds a sweet and creamy texture, taking the cake to a whole new level.
Perk 4: Easy Elegance: Despite its gourmet appeal, this recipe is surprisingly straightforward, allowing bakers of various skills to create a show-stopping dessert.
Ingredients
I added pumpkin puree and fall spices like pumpkin pie spice to this mini masterpiece, along with white chocolate which really brought out a wonderful essence to this recipe.
The eggs are crucial to this recipe. They create the structure for the outside of the molten cake but also provides great richness to the recipe.
The inside is what makes this recipe even better. The chocolate pumpkin mix is warm and gooey, and when it mixes with soft caramel with a bit of sea salt, it is insane!!!!
You could eat this as it is or top it with a scoop of ice cream (like I did), and it is absolutely sensational.
How To Make A Pumpkin Lava Cake
Here is the best way to make the very best lava cake recipe ever!
1: Mix Cake batter until it is combined.
No need to over mix cakes. This batter has all purpose flour which creates a bit more gluten when over mixed. We want this cake to have a soft silky texture, not a tough one.
2: Don’t Over bake!
A lava cake has to have a molten liquidy center. If it is overbaked, the center will solidify getting rid of the texture difference. You want the inside of your cake to ooze. You just need the outside of the cake to set up enough to hold its shape. Once that happens and the structure is sound, you can stop baking!
3: Serve right away!
I believe in serving my lava cake recipe after it is flipped on the plate. It is fresh and the center doesn’t have any time to set up and solidify. Caramel gets hard as it sets and the more this cake cools down, the more it changes the texture in the center.
More Delicious Pumpkin Desserts
Pumpkin is such an essential flavor for the fall season. I personally work it into as many recipes as possible including this caramel pumpkin lava cake recipe. If you like it, you’ll love my other pumpkin desserts:
- Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Pumpkin Pound Cake
- Brown Butter Pumpkin Cornbread
- Pumpkin Cider Doughnuts
Caramel Pumpkin Lava Cake Recipe
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Ingredients
- 3 ounces white chocolate
- 6 tablespoons salted butter
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin spice
- 2 large eggs
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/3 cup canned pumpkin
- 1½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 8 prepackaged caramel candies unwrapped (make sure they are the soft packaged type)
- sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F.
- Add white chocolate and butter to a microwave-safe, medium-sized bowl and heat in intervals of 20 seconds; stirring after each heating until completely melted and smooth.
- Whisk in flour, sugar, and pumpkin pie spice until batter is smooth.
- Whisk in eggs, egg yolk, pumpkin, and vanilla extract until the batter is well blended.
- Using 3 (6 ounce) ramekins that have been sprayed with non-stick spray, fill each ramekin half way with cake batter. Add two caramels into each ramekin and sprinkle with sea salt (about 1/8-1/4 teaspoon per cake depending on how much salty flavor you want). Spoon remaining cake batter over each cake.
- Bake cakes for 14-17 minutes and remove from oven. The cakes should be set on the outsides but still jiggly in the center.
- Let cool for 2 minutes; take a knife and run along the inside of each ramekin to help release the cake.
- Invert the cakes on individual plates. Dust with sea salt or powdered sugar and serve warm.
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can I use a package spice cake mix for your recipe? I am try to make thanksgiving easy on myself this year.
This sounds divine!
These look absolutely amazing! What a great recipe!
Looks amazing and so easy too – love your recipes!
Thank you so much!
This is the most genius creation ever!
I’m drooling over this!!
Oh my heavens, that looks sooooooo good!
These look so delicious and tempting! A great dessert for fall and apple season.
I’m in the UK and not sure if I can get pumpkin spice and canned pumpkin. Any ideas for alternatives? What about cinnamon and cooked apple?
You could definitely try the cinnamon but the cooked apple will not be the same as pumpkin. Perhaps you can try apple sauce? But it has more liquid in it so maybe adjust the other ingredients to account for that. Let me know how it turns out.