This is a recipe I’ve tweaked and tinkered with a dozen times in attempts to make it upscale, to no avail. Why fix it? The original recipe, however humble, tastes like home. This is Mom’s Chocolate Pudding Cake.
Among the least complicated desserts, I’ve ever posted. Also among the first recipes, I ever baked. As a latchkey kid at the age of nine, I would come home to dogs and horses, riding lessons, and chores. It wasn’t long before I started making meals and baking treats, and chocolate freak that I am, this was a popular choice.
All Hail Chocolate
If you have kids who are starting to show an interest in the kitchen, this a fun recipe to make together, or hand it off and see what happens. Mom’s Chocolate Pudding Cake is pretty hard to mess up. The batter is mixed right in the baking dish, and the sauce, in liquid form is poured on top. As the cake rises, the sauce settles to the bottom and thickens, and VOILA chocolate pudding cake.
Last week I made it for the three-year-old chocolate freak in my life (cake-o-holic/pudding lover) who sucked it back, much as I’d predicted. Alas, it’s not as popular as Daddy’s Cremé Caramel. Clearly, she’s been spoiled by fancy custard. (#DaddyWin)
Big Chocolate. Low Fat.
High in chocolaty taste but low in fat, Mom’s Chocolate Pudding Cake is comfort food at its best. Gooey and sweet, best served warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. The original recipe was, no doubt plagiarized from a magazine.
But mine is Mom’s handwritten recipe, sent to me many years ago, now stained and yellowing after years of service.
Some things are best just as they are because, in their original form, they taste like home.
This is a recipe I’ve tweaked and tinkered with a dozen times in attempts to make it upscale, to no avail. Why fix it? The original recipe, however humble, tastes like home. This is Mom’s Chocolate Pudding Cake.
Ingredients
UnitsScale
For the Cake:
1cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4cup sugar
1/4cup cocoa
2 tablespoons light oil (canola, safflower, corn)
1/2cup milk
For the Sauce:
1/4cup cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4cup brown sugar
1 3/4cups boiling water
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Coat 8 cup (medium-sized) baking dish with non-stick spray. Add all ingredients for the cake to the baking dish, and mix lightly with a spoon or spatula to form a batter.
In a bowl or large measuring cup, add all ingredients for the sauce, including boiling water. Mix with a wooden spoon to dissolve all sugars and blend. Pour sauce over batter and place immediately in pre-heated, 350°F (175°C) oven and bake for 45 minutes.
Remove Chocolate Pudding Cake from the oven. Wait until it’s cooled down just enough so as not to burn the roof of your mouth and… devour it. Thanks, Mom.
Fearlessly cooking in her home kitchen just outside Ottawa, Canada; Cori Horton is a food photographer, food marketing consultant, recipe developer and sustainability advocate. A Cordon Bleu trained chef, Cori spent five years as the owner of Nova Scotia's Dragonfly Inn and now shares all things delicious - right here.
Comments (0)