Vegan Self Saucing Chocolate Pudding meets Black Forest Cake in this easy vegan dessert recipe! This Chocolate Pudding Cake features a chocolatey, almost brownie-like, cake, homemade cherry compote and a rich chocolate sauce hidden underneath. Serve warm with ice cream
Black Forest Cake meets Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding – oh yes, two iconic chocolate desserts in one! What’s not to love? This is love by the spoonful. This vegan chocolate pudding cake is so amazing, it’s warm, gooey, fudgy, chocolatey, and it has a secret superpower!
You guessed it – this pudding makes it’s own chocolate sauce while it is baked! You just throw together the batter, pop the casserole in the oven, and when you scoop it up, you find all of these amazing pockets of chocolate pudding sauce hidden right in the cake. So cool and exciting (not to mention crazy delicious)!
This pudding cake is made in three layers, the bottom chocolate pudding cake layer, a middle layer which is basically just a sprinkle of cocoa powder and sugar, and the top water layer which is added before baking. You might feel a bit skeptical when making this for the first time, but trust me, truly amazing things happen in the oven. Just trust the process!.
What turns this chocolate pudding cake into a black forest chocolate pudding cake is the addition of sweet and tart cherry compote. You can use storebought but I do recommend you make your own.
How to make Cherry Compote:
For making Cherry Compote from scratch, combine 1 cup cherries with 1 tsp lime juice, 2 tablespoons maple syrup, and a pinch of cinnamon and cook in a saucepan over medium heat until thickened to preference. The cherries with burst and then thicken a bit making a delicious compote, some of which you can also serve on the side with the cake.
More easy vegan chocolate desserts to try:
- Chocolate peanut butter layer Cake
- Brownies grainfree
- Gluten-free Chocolate Cupcakes
- Chocolate Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches
- Chocolate Gingerbread Cake
- Vegan Boston Cream Pie Pudding
- Marbled Chocolate Banana bread
Vegan Black Forest Chocolate Pudding Cake
Ingredients
Self-saucing Chocolate Cake
- 1 cup (125 g) flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon (1.5 teaspoon) baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon (0.25 teaspoon) baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon (0.25 teaspoon) salt
- 1/3 cup (66.67 g) cane sugar
- 1/4 cup (21.5 g) cocoa powder preferably Dutch processed
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla bean powder
- 1/2 cup (118.29 ml) non-dairy milk such almond, oat or soy
- 1/4 cup (59.15 ml) oil
For topping the batter:
- 1/4 cup (21.5 g) cocoa powder
- 3 tablespoons cane sugar
For the hot watered topping:
- 1/2 cup (118.29 ml) plus 1 tablespoon boiling water
- 3 tablespoons maple syrup
Cherry Preserve
- 3 tablespoons cherry preserves or cherry compote for swirling in see notes for cherry compote recipe
Instructions
- Make the batter : Add the flour, baking powder, soda, salt, sugar, cocoa powder to a bowl and mix well. Add in the wet ingredients - non-dairy milk, oil, vanilla extract and mix well.
- If the batter is too thick, add in milk 1-2 teaspoons at a time to make it somewhat thick muffin like but not too stiff batter.
- Grease an 8x8 inch brownie pan or 8-inch round cake pan or a similar-sized pan. Preheat the oven to 350 F (180c).Add the batter to the pan and even it out with a spatula.
- Topping: In a bowl, mix the cocoa powder and sugar and distribute it all over this batter. Drizzle cherry preserves or compote.
- In another bowl, add the water and the maple syrup and heat it until it's boiling either in the microwave or you can heat it in the saucepan.
- Then pour the boiling water and maple mixture in the pan over the batter.
- Bake: Immediately Put pan in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 c ) and bake it for 24-30 minutes.
- The bake time depends on the pan you are using. For the regular metal pans, check at about 24 minutes whether the cake is done. The top should be set and not liquid in the middle. It will be soft and Fudgy pudding at the bottom but the top should be kind of set.
- If you are using a thicker pan like a ceramic dish or glass pan then check at 28-30 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the oven. Let it sit for 4-5 minutes. Top it with ice cream of choice and serve
Notes
Nutrition
Ingredients:
- flour – regular all-purpose flour though gluten-free flour would also work
- baking powder and baking soda to get the cake batter to rise over the sauce
- I use cane sugar for sweetening the pudding
- cocoa powder – dutch processed and lots of it
- vanilla extract or vanilla bean powder
- non-dairy milk – any kind
- oil for moisture
- the batter is topped with a mix of cocoa powder and sugar
- a mix of boiling water and maple syrup is poured on top of the batter and dry mix.
Tips & Substitutions:
- this vegan self-saucing chocolate pudding cake is best served warm.
- I recommend you serve this pudding cake along with a big scoop of dairy-free ice-cream
Make the batter: Add the flour, baking powder, soda, salt, sugar, cocoa powder to a bowl and mix well.
Add in the wet ingredients and mix well. If the batter is too thick, add in milk 1-2 teaspoons at a time to make it somewhat thick but not too stiff batter.
Grease an 8×8 inch brownie pan or 8-inch round cake pan or a similar-sized pan.
Add the batter to this pan and even it out with a spatula. Sprinkle with the cocoa sugar mixture. Drizzle cherry preserves or compote over the batter.
Then pour the boiling water and maple mixture in the pan.Don’t stir it, just let the water be, and pop it in the oven
Put pan in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 c) and bake it for 25-30 minutes.
The bake time depends on the pan you are using. For the regular metal pans, check at about 24 minutes whether it’s done. The top should be set and should not be liquid in the middle. It will be soft in the bottom but the top should be kind of set.
If you are using a thicker pan like a ceramic dish then check at 30-32 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven. Let it sit for 4-5 minutes then serve. Top it with ice cream of choice.
Shirin
Made this for Valentines Day and it was SO yummy! Came together easily…I was skeptical, but had faith as your recipes never fail me. Thank you!
Vegan Richa Support
Haha so happy to hear!
Ken Siegert
Just made this today, and it is excellent! I used apple sauce instead of oil – who needs oil! The apple sauce worked perfectly!
Vegan Richa Support
Fantastic!
Stefanie
Would this work in a bunt pan? I also love the idea of doing the dry ingredients early and then adding the wet right before cooking. That will save me a lot of time for Christmas Eve dinner.
Richa
It mostly won’t work in a bundt as there’s lots of surface area that will cook much faster than the rest
Rachel
Can I use only oat flour?
Vegan Richa Support
For the GF version?
Roseanne
I forgot the cherries, so I’ll make it again soon. So easy.
Vegan Richa Support
enjoy it the second time around
Magy
Any ideas on how to make this oil-free? I would REALLY like to make it, but I am very strict about avoiding oil. Perhaps applesauce or oily nut butter, such as pecan or walnut? or even cashew butter? Thank you for your imput!
Magy
Also, I am refined sugar-free, so would date sugar work? I would assume so, but I wanted to check to make sure.
Richa
Date sugar might work
Ken Siegert
I used apple sauce instead of oil – worked great for me! 😀
Richa
It won’t work. The whole self saucing behavior is very iffy. Try making a regular chocolate cake without oil. Add thicker layer of a soft chocolate ganache or just melted chocolate to serve .
Manpreet
Do you think it would work well to double this recipe and perhaps bake it in a 9×13 pan? I would like to make it for a dinner party for friends and don’t think this would be enough for all of us. LOL.
Richa
Yes double it. Just make sure the batter isn’t too much or too less for the pan , no more than an inch thick in the pan and no less than half an inch
Bo
Made this for Thanksgiving dessert last night, and it was so delicious! I prepared the dry ingredients in the afternoon so I just had to add the wet before baking, which only took a good 5 min. It was really nice and saucy, thanks so much for this recipe!
Vegan Richa Support
Awesome Bo – thank you
Terra
Hi Richa,
I’m a huge fan of your recipes! Thank you so much. Is the topping layer of this self-saucing cake necessary? I plan to try swapping the sugar for maple syrup or honey (I’m not vegan) in the cake itself (and if it doesn’t work out, that’s on me! not you, of course!), but I think it will be harder to do with the topping than in the batter itself.
Thank you so much!
Terra
Richa
For a self saucing effect, all of the layers are necessary. You can just make a simple chocolate cake with the cherry compote swirled in the batter. Make a separate chocolate sauce to serve with, instead of changing thai recipe and ending up with a gummy or crusty result 🙂
blythe
Can you please clarify: when adding the wet ingredients, it should include the oil, correct? Instructions include only milk and vanilla. Thanks!
Richa
Yes oil as well. Updated
Karen Ripley
This cake is easy to make and absolutely delicious. The moist, rich chocolate cake, fudgey sauce and the tangy cherries make this a delightful end to a meal.
Richa
Awesome!!
Ingrid
Wirklich sehr lecker! Bei glutenfreiem Mehl muss aber mehr Wasser verwendet werden, es war kaum Sauce vorhanden.
Richa
Depends on the gf flours. You also prob need less bake time and more liquid depending on the flours as gf flours are thirsty
Leanne
This looks amazing and I’m anxious to try it! What kind of cherries do you use to make the compote? Fresh? Frozen? Canned? Pie cherries or…?
Richa
Fresh or frozen cherries.
Leanne
Thank you for your quick response!
Vegan Richa Support
very welcome!
Laurel
Looks absolutely amazing just like everything else you post. 🙂
I’m thinking this would be perfect in individual ramekins. What do you think the cook time would be? 15 – 20 minutes?
Richa
The cake might be more prone to over baking in smaller ramekins. Check at 14/15 min mark