Why Colorado Tokers Love Lava Cake

The dessert menu at your run-of-the-mill restaurant usually lists an assortment of brownies, cookies, cheesecake and vanilla ice cream. But in the late ’90s and early 2000s, chocolate lava cake changed the game, and average sit-downs and chain eateries haven't been the same since.

The cake-soufflé hybrid with a gooey center is delicious and pleases more than one of our senses, but it's also garnered some disdain among chefs, who feel that offering lava cake for dessert is a cheap attempt at menu flair. (It's also the catalyst for one of the better modern movie meltdowns in Chef, which is extremely rewatchable when you're stoned and searching for motivation to cook.)

I don't blame professional cannabis breeders who view the Girl Scout Cookies family in a similar fashion. Whether you want to grow them or not, Cookies strains (and all of the Cakes and Pies they quickly spawned) are what the people want. So it was only a matter of time before I ran into a Cookies descendant actually named Lava Cake, a mix of Thin Mints and Grape Pie. The irony was too strong to pass up — and so are such smokin' hot genetics.

Lava Cake's background and availability don't come close to paralleling its namesake dessert. Despite being bred in Colorado by Cannarado Genetics, Lava Cake is a rare find in dispensaries, and even rarer in flower form — not that Lava Cake live resin isn't a great way to enjoy the strain's sweet, buttery flavor and spine-melting high. I quickly learned that enjoying Lava Cake any time before dinner was akin to eating a sinful dessert before my vegetables, making me too lazy to be an adult within two hours. Waiting for Lava Cake until right before a post-dinner movie was perfect, though, and two bowls kept me interested, elated and curious before my eyes slowly cemented shut.

We've seen Lava Cake at Cherry Peak Dispensary, Colorado Harvest Company, Green Man Cannabis, the Herbal Center and Starbuds, but hope to run into it more often.

Looks: A true treat for the eyes, Lava Cake's violet and wintergreen buds look Christmas tree-like under thick, opaque blankets of trichomes.

Smell: I don't notice any chocolate hints in Lava Cake, but the aroma easily fits the "dessert" category. Strong notes of berries and grapes are more sweet than sour, with a thin buttery layer making my mouth water before the back of my nostrils even notice that I'm smelling weed.

Flavor: Lava Cake's flavor captures about 75 percent of the sweet fruity notes and smooth, buttery overtones that my nose caught, but that's more than enough to impress my tastebuds. Anyone who doesn't like the skunky, earthy flavors of most weed varieties would appreciate such dessert characteristics.

Effects: Like a layer of evening fog, Lava Cake's high rolls in slowly...but hardly undetected. You won't feel incapable or lazy, but try turning lemons into lemonade and you'll see how much slower you're moving. On the good side, that ignorance extends to the body, killing minor pains and soreness. The mirage of mental capacity and warm physical effects make Lava Cake perfect for 8 p.m. or later, and dangerous any time before.

Home grower's take: "Grows like your typical indica. It produced a lot of resin under minimal stress, but the yield was just okay. I'd say it was worth it, though, because we pulled it in less than nine weeks, and the smell was so good that we didn't want to harvest. It did grow sort of high for an indica — probably about six feet — and I recommend making sure your lights are reliable, because it's too rare to fuck with. My homie was the one who bought the seeds, and we weren't able to clone it like we hoped. Haven't gotten our hands on it since."

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