A cocoa batter with milk, melted butter and vanilla, folded through with half a cup each of semisweet and white chocolate chips, spread across a greased slow cooker.
Brown sugar mixed with the remaining cocoa goes on dry, a cup and a half of very hot water is poured over without stirring, and two to two and a quarter hours on HIGH turns it into cake above and sauce below.
Why This Recipe Works
- The water is never stirred. That is the mechanism: a lighter batter rises through a heavier sugar solution, so the two swap places while it cooks. Stirring destroys the density difference the whole thing depends on.
- Three chocolates, in three forms. Cocoa gives the dark bitterness, semisweet chips the melting pockets, and white chocolate the sweet pale seams — take any one away and the name stops being accurate.
- Very hot water rather than warm. It begins dissolving the brown sugar immediately and starts the sauce before the cooker has even come up to temperature.
- Two teaspoons of baking powder against one cup of flour is generous, and it needs to be. The batter has to rise through a cup and a half of liquid, which is far harder work than rising through air.
- HIGH rather than LOW. The cake layer needs to set relatively quickly or it stays suspended in the sauce and never becomes a distinct layer at all.
Where The Three Chocolates Sit
Triple chocolate here is a specific claim: cocoa, semisweet and white, each in a different place doing a different job. The shares below are relative weights for reading the balance, not measurements to cook from.
- Cocoa, in the batter1/4 cup unsweetened
- Cocoa, in the sauce layerthe remainder of the 1/3 cup, with the brown sugar
- Semisweet chips, folded in1/2 cup
- White chocolate chips, folded in1/2 cup
- Everything else in the cake1 cup flour, 3/4 cup sugar, milk, butter, vanilla
The white chocolate is the third chocolate and it is not optional — it is what makes the claim in the title true. It also melts into pale seams through a very dark cake, which is most of what the finished pudding looks like inside.
Ingredient Notes
- Very hot water
- A cup and a half, poured over and left. This is the most important line in the recipe and the one most often misread as an ingredient to mix in.
- White chocolate chips
- Half a cup, and the third chocolate. Leaving them out does not just remove sweetness — it removes the claim the recipe is named for.
- Unsweetened cocoa powder, divided
- A third of a cup in total: a quarter cup in the batter, the rest in the sauce layer. Unsweetened both times.
- Light brown sugar, packed
- Half a cup, for the sauce layer only. Sprinkled on dry over the batter rather than dissolved first.
- Semisweet chocolate chips
- Half a cup, folded into the batter. They melt into the cake layer rather than the sauce, which is where the fudginess in the crumb comes from.
How to Make It
Grease the cooker
Lightly grease a 6-quart slow cooker.
Whisk the dry ingredients
Whisk the flour, granulated sugar, 1/4 cup cocoa, baking powder and salt.
Make the batter and spread it
Stir in the milk, melted butter and vanilla, then fold in the semisweet and white chocolate chips. Spread the batter in the cooker.
The dry sauce layer
Mix the brown sugar with the remaining cocoa and sprinkle it evenly over the batter.
Pour the hot water — do not stir
Pour the hot water gently over the top without stirring.
Cook on HIGH
Cover and cook on HIGH for 2 to 2 1/4 hours, until the cake layer is set but a glossy chocolate sauce remains underneath.
Rest
Rest uncovered for 10 minutes before serving.
Success Tips
- Grease the crock right up the sides; the sauce layer climbs as it cooks.
- Fold the two kinds of chip in last and stop stirring the moment they are through.
- Scatter the brown sugar and cocoa across the whole surface, corner to corner.
- Trickle the hot water down a spoon so it never breaks the batter surface.
- Do not stir at any point after step 3, and resist lifting the lid.
Serving Ideas
Spooned warm rather than sliced, with cream or vanilla ice cream. Take the spoon down through the cake so each serving carries both layers.
Storage and Reheating
Refrigerate
Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to 3 days. The sauce thickens considerably when cold and loosens again on warming.
Freeze
Freezing is not recommended. Self-saucing puddings lose the separation between their layers entirely once frozen and thawed.
Reheat
Reheat individual portions in the microwave in short bursts. The sauce returns to a pourable consistency within about a minute.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this different from the lava brownie cake?
This is a self-saucing pudding: the batter rises through the water and the layers swap places as it cooks. The lava cake is a brownie mix with an instant pudding layer poured on top, and its layers stay exactly where they are put.
Should I stir the water in?
No. The unstirred water is the recipe — the batter rises through it and sets as cake while the sugar and cocoa sink and become sauce. Stirring gives you a thin batter and no sauce at all.
There was no sauce underneath.
It cooked too long. The cue is a set cake layer with a glossy sauce still beneath it, which arrives between two and two and a quarter hours depending on the cooker.
Can I leave out the white chocolate?
Then it is a double chocolate pudding. The white chocolate is one of the three the recipe is named for, and it is also the pale seams you see when you spoon into it.
