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.
Featuring all new, protein-packed salads, hearty toppers, flavour boosters, and dressings you'll want to drink, my new cookbook will transform the way you think about salads. Oh, and be sure to flip to the back for a surprise dessert chapter!
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.
So excited about this recipe! My question is regarding the oat flour- is there a next best thing I could use? (I don’t need it to be gluten free)
Anyone try this with Rice Milk? One kid with nut allergy, one kid with Dairy allergy. Fun huh?:)
I failed. This did not come out for me at all. I’ve made the pudding cake in your book and it has come out awesome each time. I have no idea what went wrong. :-) As for your book I’ve cooked/baked about 80% of the recipes in it and the only one I had trouble with there was with the Chia donuts.
I made this verbatim and my is not gooey. Its thick. Why?
I made this for our Thanksgiving dessert and it was such a hit! It was awesome. Thank you.
I made this twice and both times it came out thick, heavy, and gummy. There was no gooey at all. I thought the first time was a fluke, as can sometimes happen. I followed the recipe word for word. I tried it again with the same end result.
I’m not new to vegan baking at all. Anyone else have this problem?
This is amazing, simple, rich, chocolate, it has everything!!!
Hi I would love to try this recipe as well as the recipe that you have on your book chocolate fudge pudding cake, can I replace the oat flour, in both recipes with either rice flour or rice flour and almond flour? Many thanks. Margarida
This looks absolutely perfect. I am a coffee fiend and wanted to learn more ways to put it in food. I am very excited to try it.
Just made this for a family dinner! My 94 year old grandma, who has trouble even remembering the word “vegan”, LOVED this cake! She asked for the recipe! Thanks so much for making dishes that are so accessible to people of all diets and ages!
I made this as directed and it seemed like the batter was too thick. The coffee remained on top of the cake and never developed into a pudding cake. Any help?
Thought I would LOVE this recipe – looks so great! However, I made it and the espresso on top never sank into the cake mixture. I finally poked holes mid-bake, but I never got a pudding cake. Suggestions??
I made this last night and it was really good, but like some, mine didn’t come out ooey gooey like a pudding cake. It was more like a super moist cake. Part of my issue could be that I used spelt flour, which is all I had on hand, so I’ll use oat flour next time. I had to bake it for 37 minutes to get the semi-firm top, which in turn I guess baked the rest of it too much? I don’t know, but regardless, it was delicious, and my kids loved it too! I’ll just have to keep trying! ;-)
Is the pumpkin purée meant to be quite liquidy as opposed to a pumpkin pie filling texture?
Tried this for Christmas dessert, and I’m sorry to say it was not a hit. The texture was not what I was expecting, it tasted like wet, chocolatey oatmeal (the “gooey”?). I didn’t get much of the pumpkin, spice, or latte flavors… and I was expecting it to be more cake-like on top. I love the website and most of your recipes Angela, but this one was a disappointment for me. Still a big fan, and love your cookbook!
This was good, but I overcooked it a bit, and I felt it tasted too much of the oatmeal flour. Next time I may try barley flour and maybe add more pumpkin and spices. It’s okay, but not what I expected….
This cake looked so good, I couldn’t wait to try it. Mine turned out to be a bust! After 25 minutes of baking it was a little swampy. I put it back in for 5 and it still didn’t look like Angela’s pictures. The cake was dry inside :( Any ideas why this happened? Thanks!
Ok, so my hubs just freaked out on this one!! (we had OhSheGlows food night – this and the taco wraps). He usually inhales food, but he savored every. single. bite! This will become a regular dessert in our house!
I normally love so many of the recipes on here but this one I just wasn’t a fan of. I’m afraid I can’t really say what it was. Although it was chocolatey it just didn’t feel indulgent enough when I ate it. Maybe the coffee pumpkin combo threw me off, though both are very subtle flavours. Anyway, it seems to be popular so probably just my taste buds.
I just made this and it was delicious! I used sucanat instead of coconut sugar and it came out great.