"Indulgent" Lava Fudge Cake

Years ago, I purchased this fabulous cookbook that had a collection of some of the best recipes from church cookbooks from around the U.S. I had never actually used it until recent...and I'm really happy I did! Of course, none of the scrumptious comfort foods featured are considered "clean" but in the past 3 years, I've become quite the pro at cleaning up recipes! This one is officially one of my favorites!

Ingredients:
- 1 cup - brown rice flour
- 3/4 cup - xylitol, erythritol, lakanto, or brown coconut sugar (I used a blend of xylitol and white lakanto)
- 6 teaspoons - unsweetened, raw, organic cocoa powder, divided
- 2 teaspoons - baking powder, aluminum-free
- 1/4 teaspoon - sea salt or pink salt
- 1/2 cup - organic, unsweetened coconut milk - if canned, BPA-free liner. Unsweetened almond milk and/or coconut milk from the carton also works.
- 2 tablespoons - raw, organic coconut oil, softened or melted
- 1 teaspoon of organic vanilla extract
- 1/4--1/2 cup of organic brown coconut sugar and/or brown lakanto (I used a blend of the two. Since I gave up sugar years ago, I personally preferred the version with just 1/4 cup but my audience of taste testers liked the sweeter version, using 1/2 cup. (Lakanto has no effect on your blood sugar and brown coconut sugar is a low glycemic sweetener.)
- 1 3/4 cups - hot water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine flour, white sweetener, 2 tablespoons of cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Then, add oil and vanilla and mix until smooth. Spread batter in an ungreased 9 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan.
3. Combine brown sweetener and remaining 4 tablespoons of cocoa. Sprinkle evenly over top of batter.
4. In a teapot or pan, heat water almost to a boil. (I just added about 2 cups of water to a kettle and once hot, measured out the 1 3/4 cup.) Pour hot water evenly over all of your mixture in pan. Do not stir.
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before cutting to serve.

The bottom of this cake will be a gooey consistency. Enjoy!

After the batter is poured.

After you've evenly covered the top with cocoa and brown sweetener mixture.

After you've evenly covered the top with hot water.

Voila! As you can see, this version looks a tad different from the top version I made. This particular cake I used 1/4 cup sweetener vs. the 1/2 cup. I also diluted the canned coconut milk with a little bit of water to see what it would do if someone were to use a thinner coconut or almond milk from the carton. Other than appearance, the taste didn't really differ, other than sweetness, of course because of the sweetener reduction. The texture was slightly different but not enough to prefer one method over another.