There are chocolate cakes… and then there’s this bloody thing.
Our Hot Chocolate Fudge Cake is the kind of dessert you make when you’ve decided that a sensible portion of pudding is no longer part of the plan. It’s a rich, deeply chocolatey sponge with a proper molten hot chocolate fudge sauce hiding underneath, all baked together in one dish. No faffing about with separate sauces, fancy pastry techniques or a kitchen full of washing up.
The magic happens in the oven. The chocolate sponge rises to the top while the mixture underneath turns into a thick, glossy fudge sauce. When you dig your spoon in, that sauce comes flooding out around the warm cake. And yes, you absolutely want to get right down to the bottom of the dish for it.
We’ve gone full hot-chocolate mode with this one, too. Once it’s out of the oven, we pile it into bowls with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream, plenty of dark chocolate shavings and a handful of little pink and white marshmallows. If you’ve got a blowtorch, give the marshmallows a quick toast so they get that slightly charred, campfire edge. If you haven’t, pop them under a hot grill for a few seconds to get the outsides crisping and the middles melting.
The recipe uses everyday ingredients and takes surprisingly little effort for something that looks and tastes this outrageous. The only real trick is not overbaking it. You want the top to be set, but the middle still soft and fudgy, because that molten sauce is the whole bloody point.
This is one for cold nights, lazy Sundays, dinner parties, birthdays, or frankly any time you fancy making something ridiculously chocolatey.
Serve it warm, preferably with more ice cream than is strictly necessary.
And remember our three golden rules:
Spoon it.
Scoop it.
Destroy it.
Because sometimes dessert doesn’t need to be sophisticated.
It just needs to be bloody brilliant.
Here’s how to make our Hot Chocolate Fudge Cake
I Believe In Miracles
Ingredients
Method
- Heat the oven to 190℃ – that's 170℃ for a fan oven. Butter a roughly 20cm x 30cm baking dish. You want something fairly deep because this thing is going to get gloriously messy.
- Mix the flour, cocoa powder, brown sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
- Add the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla and whisk until you have a smooth batter.
- Pour in the hot coffee and whisk again. The batter should seem quite loose – don't worry, that's exactly what we want.
- Pour the batter into the prepared dish.
- Mix the brown sugar and cocoa powder together and sprinkle it evenly over the entire surface of the cake batter. Now, carefully pour the 300ml boiling water over the top.
- Don't stir it! It will look completely wrong. It Isn't. Dot the surface with the chopped chocolate and butter and then leave it alone.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes. The top should be set and slightly cracked but the centre should still have a little wobble.
- Leave it for 5-10 minutes before serving.
- Underneath that soft chocolate sponge will be a thick, glossy hot chocolate fudge sauce.
- Spoon the cake out rather than trying to cut neat slices. We're not trying to pretend this is a wedding cake.
- Put a generous spoonful into a bowl.
- Add a large scoop of vanilla ice cream & grate over a little dark chocolate.
- If you're feeling particularly reckless, scatter over a few mini marshmallows.
- Pour some of that hot fudge sauce over the whole lot.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is provided as a guide only and may vary depending on ingredients, brands and portion sizes.
Cush’s Notes
Tried this recipe?
Please consider Leaving a Review!For a full-on feast for six people, why not have this after our amazing Lasagne – if you have room of course!