Hot Fudge Pudding Cake
Today was supposed to be lava cake but we wanted to feed several people today so we decided on a pudding cake (which is what my mom used to call lava cake anyway). Individual lava cakes are a little different and we will try them someday…just not today. As a kid, this was another cake-like dessert that my mom made that I really liked. Probably due to the fact that it didn’t have a super sweet frosting and that it had a pudding layer on the bottom which kept the cake incredibly moist even after a couple days, if it survived that long.
The best thing about pudding cakes is that the pudding is supposed to form all by itself at the bottom of the pan with no effort from the baker. The recipe we used was from Cook’s Illustrated Baking. Our substitutions were Allulose for the sugar, Swerve Brown for the brown sugar, and almond milk for the whole milk.
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons instant coffee
- 1 ½ cups water
- ⅔ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder (2 1/2 ounces)
- ⅓ cup brown sugar (packed, 1 3/4 ounces)
- 1 cup granulated sugar (7 ounces)
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 ounces semisweet chocolate or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
- ¾ cup unbleached all-purpose flour (3 3/4 ounces)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup whole milk
- ¼ teaspoon table salt
- 1 large egg yolk
Instructions
- Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly spray 8-inch square glass or ceramic baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Stir instant coffee into water; set aside to dissolve. Stir together 1/3 cup cocoa, brown sugar, and 1/3 cup granulated sugar in small bowl, breaking up large clumps with fingers; set aside. Melt butter, remaining 1/3 cup cocoa, and chocolate in small bowl set over saucepan of barely simmering water; whisk until smooth and set aside to cool slightly. Whisk flour and baking powder in small bowl to combine; set aside. Whisk remaining 2/3 cup sugar, vanilla, milk, and salt in medium bowl until combined; whisk in yolk. Add chocolate mixture and whisk to combine. Add flour mixture and whisk until batter is evenly moistened.
- Pour batter into prepared baking dish and spread evenly to sides and corners. Sprinkle cocoa/sugar mixture evenly over batter (cocoa mixture should cover entire surface of batter); pour coffee mixture gently over cocoa mixture. Bake until cake is puffed and bubbling and just beginning to pull away from sides of baking dish, about 45 minutes. (Do not overbake.) Cool cake in dish on wire rack about 25 minutes before serving.
Our Experience
We managed to get a photo of our ingredients today!!
This recipe involved getting things ready and then dumping things together. First, we made the coffee.
Our next step was preparing the mixture that would be sprinkled on top of the batter.
We got the flour and baking powder ready in another bowl and also started melting the chocolate. We used the microwave instead of a double boiler.
We mixed up the milk mixture and then added the egg yolk.
The chocolate mixture was cooled a bit so we tempered the milk/egg mixture before adding them all together (just to be safe) and started mixing. Once that was smooth and incorporated together, we added the flour and baking powder mixture.
Well, seems like we don’t actually have a “batter”, more like a dough. We don’t think it is supposed to be this thick but decide it is due to the chocolate maybe being to cool and it thickened up. We debated a quick pop into the microwave, but decided that might not be a good idea.
Having never made this cake, we didn’t know how our batter would affect the final product so we soldiered on. We decided that even if it was all screwed up, it would still taste great!
The cocoa powder mixture was spread out onto the batter and then the coffee was poured over the top of the whole thing.
When we pulled it out, we knew we didn’t quite get the dessert we had expected. Some of the pudding was bubbling on the top and some was at the bottom like it was supposed to be. We were serving it straight out of the oven so we didn’t get great pictures of it…trust me, it wasn’t very pretty. In the end, it’s a dessert that you spoon out of the pan into a bowl so it didn’t need to look pretty anyway.
What we liked.
The moistness of this cake is still one of its positives. The chocolates that we used were good quality so it also had a great chocolate taste. I really like the mix of cake and pudding (as I did with our lemon pudding cake). The rest of the household “liked” it but they didn’t like the pudding part of it as much as I did. So, even though it got a 5 out of 5, if they were to rate it, it would probably just get a 5 out of 10.
In my opinion, it was really good with ice cream or whipped cream like I used (fat free). I had both and went with the whipped cream for the lower calorie count.
What we would change.
Of course we would try to figure out why our batter wasn’t more like a batter. We think it was the chocolate cooling off but don’t know for sure. The egg and milk were at room temperature so we aren’t sure what we should change other than get the chocolate hotter. We also wondered if our using sugar substitutes changed the “chemistry” of the cake and that’s why the pudding didn’t form an actual layer at the bottom.
Since the majority of the household didn’t love it, I think I will try to find an individual cake recipe so I can still have one once in awhile. Experimenting on a single cake will be much easier to figure out where we could make improvements.
What we learned.
Until we do some experimenting, we won’t learn exactly what happened. However, we did learn, again, that when it comes to food, looks aren’t everything. Desserts can be very sloppy looking but as long as they taste good, nobody will care!
Until next week, Happy Baking!