Grease the ramekins or cupcake pans with some oil and dust with coco powder. Tap out the extra powder.

Pre-heat the microwave oven to 200° C.

Break the dark chocolate into small pieces if you have a large hard bar. You can cut the pieces and keep in the refrigerator.

Take two whole eggs with sugar in a bowl and beat well until the sugar dissolves.

In another wide bowl, sieve all-purpose flour, coco powder, salt and baking soda.

Pour the egg-sugar mixture; add vanilla essence and the oil.

Mix everything together. You can add a quarter cup of warm water if required to make a slightly thin batter without lumps.

Fill the dusted cups to its 3/4th level with the cake batter.

Now insert broken dark chocolate pieces in the center of the batter like this.

Also, add a few extra chocolate scraps/chips, but only in the middle. Insert the pieces very gently with a spoon/fork.

Bake immediately for 15-20mins in a preheated oven. Baking time varies based on the oven temperature, type of oven, type of bakeware. As I used aluminium mold (which is the highest heat conductor), it took just 17 minutes exactly for the outer cake to cook and the inside chocolate to melt.

You can fix the timing by checking frequently after 15 minutes. Insert the toothpick and if the middle lava liquid is ready, then it's almost done. Also, check the cake surrounding the molten lava. The cake batter should be cooked properly as well.

Once baking is done, remove the ramekins/cups and let them cool for just five minutes.

Remember to serve the Choco lava cake hot/warm to get the desired liquid lava. If it becomes cold, the molten chocolate may again start solidifying.

Invert the cups carefully into the serving plate.

Serve warm and enjoy the molten lava cake with oozing hot chocolate.