OMG, this pudding cake.
Pumpkin + chocolate + brewed coffee + pumpkin pie spices + almond milk = heaven in a dish!
Heaven in a gluten-free, vegan dish, that is. And it’s easily made nut-free just by swapping out the almond milk for coconut milk. Want it soy-free too? Just use soy-free chocolate chips (such as Enjoy Life brand). Oh yea, and because I used moisture-rich pumpkin, this recipe is oil-free but you’d never know it.
If you haven’t had the pleasure of enjoying a chocolate pudding cake before, let me tell you what’s so magical about it: the chocolate cake creates its own chocolate pudding sauce as it bakes! Oh heck yes. It’s like having a sous chef in your very own kitchen. Why make chocolate sauce when the cake can make it for you?
Now that you’re drooling uncontrollably, let me show you just how easy it is to make…
Layer 3 (below) is when you might want to freak out because your cake looks like a hot mess. You will think you did something wrong, but you did everything right, my friends. It’s supposed to look like a hot mess. Don’t you wish all recipes were that easy? So dump on that hot coffee on top and marvel in the hot mess! I promise it will all work out in the end (see after photo). It’s like a magic trick.
See? Nothing to worry about here.
Don’t you just want to dig in with a big spoon?
I highly recommend (no, I beg) that you serve it with your favourite vanilla ice cream (I love Coconut Bliss Vanilla Island) and toasted pecans. The hot vs. cold, gooey vs. creamy contrast is to die for. You won’t be sorry.
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Gooey Pumpkin Spice Latte Chocolate Pudding Cake
Yield
6-8 servings
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Coffee, pumpkin, pumpkin pie spices, and chocolate all combined in one gooey, saucy, pudding cake. What on earth could be better? Serve with a scoop of vegan ice cream and toasted pecans to take it over the edge. Be sure to see my notes at the end of this recipe for ways you can change it up. Recipe adapted from The Oh She Glows Cookbook.
Ingredients
- 1 flax egg: (1 tablespoon ground flax mixed with 3 tablespoons water)
- 1.5 cups rolled oats, ground into a flour (use certified gluten-free oats, if necessary)
- 3/4 cup coconut sugar
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/3 cup finely chopped non-dairy dark chocolate
- 1/2-3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt, to taste
- 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons almond milk
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons unsweetened pumpkin puree
- 1/2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup coconut sugar
- 1 + 1/4 cup hot coffee (use decaf, if desired)
- For serving: vegan vanilla ice cream and toasted chopped pecans
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375⁰F and lightly grease an 8-inch square glass baking dish with oil.
- Whisk flax and water together in a small bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to gel up.
- In a large bowl, stir together the oat flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, chocolate, salt, and baking powder.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flax mixture, milk, pumpkin, and vanilla.
- Pour wet mixture onto dry ingredients and stir until thoroughly combined.
- Scoop the batter into the prepared glass dish and smooth out evenly with a spoon.
- In a small bowl or mug, combine the remaining tablespoon of cocoa powder and 1/4 cup sugar. Sprinkle all of it evenly over the cake batter.
- Slowly pour the hot coffee over the cocoa powder and sugar mixture ensuring that the coffee completely covers the powder and sugar. The cake will now look like a complete disaster, but this is normal. Promise!
- Very carefully place the dish into the oven, uncovered. Bake at 375⁰F for 25-40 minutes (see my post for the visual step by step pictures) until the cake is semi-firm on the top, but bubbly and gooey around the edges (see photo in blog post). It will look under-baked, but this is normal (we want it saucy!). If for whatever reason your cake is still watery after 30 minutes in the oven, keep baking it until it looks like the photo in the blog post.
- Let the cake cool for 10 minutes and then serve immediately with vegan vanilla ice cream and toasted pecans. This cake is best served warm straight out of the oven. I tried reheating leftovers in the oven the next day and the cake absorbed a lot of the sauce during the reheat. It was still good, but we preferred the cake the first day, fresh out of the oven. Leftovers are quite good served chilled, as an alternate suggestion.
Tip:
- You can probably swap the coconut sugar for natural cane sugar. The bake time may vary slightly since coconut sugar tends to be more dry.
- If you aren't a coffee fan, feel free to swap it with boiling water.
- To make this nut-free, swap the almond milk for coconut milk (or non-dairy milk of your choice) and leave out the pecan garnish.
- To make the oat flour, add the rolled oats into a high speed blender and blend on high until a fine flour forms. You can also use 1 1/2 cups + 2 tablespoons store-bought oat flour instead.
Nutrition Information
(click to expand)
Wishing all my fellow Canadian readers a very happy Thanksgiving weekend! It’s hard to believe it’s already here.
If you are looking for my vegan Thanksgiving recipes, see this post.
Made it this afternoon- insane!! The only thing is I didn’t pour enough coffee and ended up with little goo. But still- insane! Will be making it for Thanksgiving. I’ve been a vegan for the past 20 years,-my mother started us all as vegetarians. Now, my own daughter Maya, 4, a super vegan hooligan is lucky enough to taste so many of your recipes – I’m loving the book!! She’ll be having the pumpkin cake for her Halloween party at school!
Does anyone know.. I’m a little confused, if you grind up the oats into flour, you have less than 1.5 cups of flour. So do you want 1.5 cups of the oat flour or 1.5 cups of the oats and then grind into flour? Any help would be appreciated!
Hi Amy, you are to use 1.5 cups rolled oats and then transfer the oats into a high speed blender and blend until a fine flour forms. Hope this helps!
In your notes section you state you can use 1 1/2 + 2 TBSP of store bought Oat Flour. Wouldn’t this be more than grinding the oats yourself? I made this recipe tonight and couldn’t figure out when to take it out of the oven. You stated if it was super watery to keep cooking it – but it never stopped being watery – then got super rubbery. Really disappointing as I had to throw the whole thing away and it’s so much $ worth of great ingredients :(. I also let it sit for about 2 hours before consuming and realize that’s is a big problem.
sorry if this question has been asked already but is there any way to make this grain free (something to replace the oat flour with?)?
Thanks so much!!!
This looks absolutely fantastic. I have a nice flavored coffee right now that I think would be perfect for this. Im very excited.
A-MAZING dessert this was!!! My sister and I just got finished making (and devouring lol) it. Neither of us are really bakers or coffee drinkers but it looked too good not to try. We followed the recipe almost to a “T” (we put just a cup of coffee instead) and the end result was just blissful :) We paired it with some bourbon vanilla ice cream and I swear I died briefly and went to heaven!
So my friend and I baked this tonight (we tagged you on Instagram), and we kinda messed up. We forgot to put the chocolate in the cake, so we put it on top at the last minute. It makes the liquidy pudding SOOOO good.
what would you substitute the sugar with? I can’t have sugar? For the chocolate pumpkin cake.
thanks
My 10 year old daughter and I made the coffee-free version and it was über delicious! My husband hates pumpkin and he even liked it. Two thumbs up :-)
Mmmmmmm! Just made this over the weekend for a Halloween treat and it was delicious! Thanks:)
I have instant espresso but not regular coffee–can espresso be substituted for the coffee and what would the ratio be?
Just made this tonight. Delicious! Very easy to make too.
I made this last night for my birthday celebration with friends and it was a hit!
There’s an almost exact recipe (save the pumpkin) in my mother’s old favorite coobook. She used to make this pudding when I was a kid and it was a family classic ! I made your recipe, with pumpkin, to remind my family of these moments.
This looks so gorgeous!!! I am too sensitive to caffeine-even decaff. What can I substitute in its place?
Thank you for all the beautiful and inspiring recipes.
Daniella
I have an abundance of fresh home-processed pumpkin so I had to try this. I doubled the recipe and used a 9×13 pan. I followed the recipe to the letter. EXCELLENT results. Personally I liked it cold the next day even better. Thanks for posting this!
I currently have reduced sugar vanilla almond milk, does this matter? Or should a use a specific one?
Any almond milk will do :)
I’m adding this to my Thanksgiving menu this year, thank you!
Do you think I can use coconut flour instead of the oat flour? Just curious because I have it on hand. Thanks!
Thought you’d like to know I made this last night for my husband’s work event today and they devoured it. This was apparently the star of the feast :)
I’m so glad I came across your page! I want to make this for my daughter and her friend at Thanksgiving. I will not be at my house so without making the whole dish ahead of time…I want it right out of the oven! Can I do steps 1 -7 and let it sit for a few hours before I do 8?
Amazing as always, Angela! I was lazy and just used hot water instead of coffee and it turned out really nice, with subtle sweetness and spice + ooey gooey chocolate saucy goodness. The Vanilla Island Bliss and toasted pecans truly round out the experience into something divine in terms of flavors and textures. My husband practically inhaled his portion while I am slowly savoring mine, haha! Thank you so much for sharing this delicious gem of a recipe. I’ll definitely be trying it with coffee as well in the future! :)