Fix It and Forget Its Hot Fudge Cake (Crock Pot) & Mom's Chocolate Pudding Cake

My mother made chocolate pudding cake a lot when we were kids, and I LOVED it! It has stuck with me and is still one of my favorites. She always made it in the oven, but I found this recipe that allows you to use your Crock Pot instead, and it tastes just the same. It's my new favorite way to make this childhood favorite. It also makes it easy to transport and serve warm if you are visiting someone.

This recipe came from my Fix It and Forget It cookbook.

Hot Fudge Cake (Crock Pot)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup packed brown sugar 
• 1 cup flour 
• 3 Tbl. Unsweetened cocoa powder 
• 2 tsp. baking powder 
• ½ tsp. salt 
• ½ cup milk 
• 2 Tbl. Melted butter
• ½ tsp. vanilla
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 ¾ cups boiling water
• vanilla ice cream or whipped cream

Directions:

1. Mix together 1 cup brown sugar, flour, 3 Tbl. Cocoa, baking powder and salt. 
2. Stir in milk, butter and vanilla. Spread over the bottom of slow cooker. 
3. Mix together ¾ cup brown sugar and ¼ cup cocoa. Sprinkle over mixture in slow cooker. 
4. Pour in boiling water. Do not stir. 
5. *Cover and cook approximately 2 hours on low, being careful not to over cook or all the pudding will get absorbed into the cake. Just check occasionally until the cake to pudding ratio is how you like it. 
6. Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream. 

Marsha's Notes:

Krystal tried to make this recipe and ended up with no pudding in the bottom. The original instructions said to cook for approximately 2-3 hours on low, so I dropped that to only 2 hours in the hopes that people wouldn't over cook their cakes. However, depending on your crock pot, 2 hours might not be enough for the desired cake-to-pudding ratio, so don't worry if you need to cook it longer. Just don't leave it without checking on it until you know how your crock pot performs for this recipe. Once you see the cake really starting to form in the pot, I would probably take a spoon and just poke around until I could how much cake and pudding there was and decide if I wanted to cook it longer or not. There's no eggs or anything like that in this recipe, so I wouldn't worry that anything really terrible would happen if I cooked it for less time.

Mom's Chocolate Pudding Cake (Oven)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 Tbl cocoa
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 Tbl shortening, melted
• 1 cup chopped nuts
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1 1/4 cup hot water

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Measure first five ingredients into bowl. Stir. 
3. Blend in milk and shortening and nuts. 
4. Pour into ungreased 9x9 pan. 
5. Stir together brown sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa. 
6. Sprinkle over batter. Pour hot water over all. Bake for 45 minutes.

Marsha's Notes:

Just like the crock pot recipe, I would keep an eye on this cake while it's cooking the first time in your oven, just to see how it does. Everyone's oven is different, and if you end up with no pudding in your pan, it might be that you need to lower the temperature or bake for a shorter amount of time because it's cooking too fast... conversely, if you end up with too much pudding/liquid, you might need to bake for longer.