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Love the look of Christmas puddings but don’t love the flavours? Is it always a pass for you when others are tucking into their Christmas fruit cakes? Chocolate Christmas Pudding Cake might be the perfect festive dessert for you!
Everyone loves chocolate cake, right?
And while it may not be a traditional Christmas dessert, you can’t get much more festive looking than this version of the chocolate cake.
Make it your new tradition: Chocolate Christmas Pudding Cake.
Christmas Cake inspo
I got the idea for this cake from a Christmas cookbook from the 1990s that I picked up in an op shop.
Here’s the original cake on the front page of that book:
It’s a gorgeous looking cake, but I changed a few things to make it easier to put together:
- I used a pudding basin instead of a round mould to bake the cake – since pudding basins are easier to source (at kitchen stores and op shops) and this avoids having to stick together the two cake parts when using a round mould.
- I used icing and lollies instead of chocolate and sugar paster to decorate.
- I also found a simpler chocolate cake recipe.
Ingredients for Chocolate Christmas Pudding Cake
To make the chocolate cake you’ll need:
- butter
- sugar
- vanilla extract
- eggs
- cocoa
- SR flour (or plain/all-purpose flour + baking powder)
- milk.
To ice and decorate, you’ll need:
- icing sugar
- cocoa
- butter
- boiling water
- currants and sultanas
- silver cachous
- lolly raspberries
- lolly spearmint leaves.
Putting your chocolate “Christmas Pudding” together
You can make this Christmas dessert a day ahead.
The method is set out in full in the recipe card below, but the basic steps are:
- making the chocolate cake in a pudding basin and allowing to cool
- placing chocolate cake on a cooling rack and placing baking paper underneath the rack before decorating
- making the chocolate icing and pouring it over the cake, using a spatula to ensure it completely covers the cake
- placing currants and sultanas in the icing before it sets, around the lower 2/3 of the cake
- placing the (very thick) vanilla icing on top of cake and encouraging it to ooze down at a few points around the cake
- placing the cachous in the vanilla icing and the raspberries and spearmint leaves on top of pudding.
As mentioned above, this dessert is best made the day or or day before eating.
Below, it’s served in wedges with a little extra vanilla icing.
You can find traditional pudding, Christmas Cake and many other festive delights in the Cooking with Nana Ling Christmas collection.
Chocolate Christmas Pudding Cake
Equipment
- 2 litre pudding basin
Ingredients
Chocolate cake
- 175 grams butter
- 1 3/4 cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup cocoa
- 2 cups SR flour (or 2 cups plain/all-purpose flour + 2 teaspoons baking powder)
- 1 cup milk
Chocolate icing
- 1 cup icing sugar
- 3 tablespoons cocoa
- 15 grams butter
- 2-3 tablespoons boiling water
Vanilla Icing
- 2/3 cup icing sugar
- 10 grams butter
- 2-3 teaspoons boiling water
Decorating
- 1 tablespoon currants and sultanas
- 1 teaspoon silver cachous
- 2 lolly raspberries
- 2 lolly spearmint leaves
- little extra vanilla icing for serving (optional)
Instructions
Chocolate cake
- Pre-heat oven to moderate (180 degrees celsius, fan-forced).
- Grease pudding basin and line with baking paper.
- Cream butter, sugar and vanilla extract.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating well to combine.
- Alternately add sifted flour/cocoa and milk until well combined.
- Pour mixture into pudding basin, place in oven and bake for about 1 hour.
- Test cake is ready by lightly touching top (it should spring back) or inserting a skewer (which should come out clean).
- Allow cake to cool for a few minutes before inverting and turning out onto a cooling rack.
Icing and decorating
- Place chocolate cake on a cooling rack and place baking paper underneath the rack.
- Once cake is completely cool, mix up chocolate icing by combining all ingredients and adding water slowly until you have a runny paste.
- Pour chocolate icing over cake and use a spatula to ensure it completely covers the cake.
- Place currants and sultanas around the lower 2/3 of the cake.
- Mix up vanilla icing. It should be thicker than the chocolate icing so it holds its shape and just spreads slightly. Place vanilla icing on top of cake and encourage it to ooze down at a few points around the cake.
- Add cachous to the vanilla icing and place raspberries and spearmint leaves on top of pudding.
- Allow icing to set.
- Serve with a little extra vanilla icing (made a little runnier with more water) which can be poured over individual slices.