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This Chocolate Lava Cake is absolutely fabulous. It’s served warm, has a moist top layer, and an ooey-gooey bottom that is rich, smooth and full of chocolate goodness. Add a cool scoop of ice cream and you will be in heaven, my friends. Not only is this cake delectable, but you can put it together in just about 15 minutes. Then it cooks in the crock pot for 2 1/2 hours. It’s great for summer gatherings when you don’t want to heat up your oven. Make it for Sunday dinner, make it for a friend, make it for your 4th of July celebration!
Let me show you how to make it happen. 🙂
1. Grab a 3-4 quart crock pot and line it with parchment paper. Spray the inside of the paper with cooking spray. The parchment paper helps the cake cook without burning along the edges. You can make it without the paper, just be sure to watch it closely.
2. Find yourself a nice chocolate cake mix and pour it into your stand mixer or medium-sized mixing bowl.
3. Add 1 1/4 cup milk, 1/2 cup oil and 3 eggs. Beat on low-speed for 1 minutes. Scrape the bottom of the bowl and beat on medium speed for 2-3 minutes or until the batter in nice and glossy.
4. Pour the batter into the lined crock pot.
5. Pour one small box of chocolate pudding into your stand mixer or medium-sized mixing bowl. Add 2 cups cold milk and beat it until the pudding thickens. Should take about 3-4 minutes.
6. Pour the pudding over the top of the cake batter. Don’t stir it. Really, cross my heart and hope to die. It will cook up best if you leave the layers be.
7. Grab a bag of milk chocolate chips and pour the pretty little things all over the top of the pudding. Again, please do not stir it.
8. Cover the crock and cook on low for 2 1/2 hours, or until the top of the cake is set. ***NOTE: Some readers have had a hard time getting this cake to cook in the 2 1/2 hour allotted cooking time. Every crock pot cooks a little differently. You may want to leave yourself 3-3 1/2 hours cooking time. If your cake isn’t cooking quickly enough, you could also turn the crock pot setting to high for the last 15 minutes or so. This recipe takes a little experimenting with, depending on how fast your crock pot cooks.***
Like this. 🙂
The bottom layer of the cake will be all gooey and soft. Yum.
Double yum.
9. Place some on a plate…
and add a cool scoop of ice cream or whipped cream right on top.
Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 box chocolate cake mix
- 1 1/4 C milk
- 1/2 C vegetable or canola oil
- 3 eggs
- 1 (3.9 ounce) instant chocolate pudding
- 2 C milk (I used 1 %)
- 1 (12 ounce) bag milk chocolate chips
- parchment paper
Instructions
1. Grab a 3-4 quart crock pot and line it with parchment paper. Spray the inside of the paper with cooking spray. The parchment paper helps the cake cook without burning along the edges. You can make it without the paper, just be sure to watch it closely.
2. Find yourself a nice chocolate cake mix and pour it into your stand mixer or medium-sized mixing bowl.
3. Add 1 1/4 cup milk, 1/2 cup oil and 3 eggs. Beat on low-speed for 1 minutes. Scrape the bottom of the bowl and beat on medium speed for 2-3 minutes or until the batter in nice and glossy.
4. Pour the batter into the lined crock pot.
5. Pour one small box of chocolate pudding into your stand mixer or medium-sized mixing bowl. Add 2 cups cold milk and beat it until the pudding thickens. Should take about 3-4 minutes.
6. Pour the pudding over the top of the cake batter. Don't stir it. Really, cross my heart and hope to die. It will cook up best if you leave the layers be.
7. Grab a bag of milk chocolate chips and pour the pretty little things all over the top of the pudding. Again, please do not stir it.
8. Cover the crock and cook on low for 2 1/2 hours, or until the top of the cake is set. ***NOTE: Some readers have had a hard time getting this cake to cook in the 2 1/2 hour allotted cooking time. Every crock pot cooks a little differently. You may want to leave yourself 3-3 1/2 hours cooking time. If your cake isn't cooking quickly enough, you could also turn the crock pot setting to high for the last 15 minutes or so. This recipe takes a little experimenting with, depending on how fast your crock pot cooks.***
The bottom layer of the cake will be all gooey and soft. Yum.
9. Place some on a plate and add a cool scoop of ice cream or whipped cream right on top.
Enjoy!
Notes
***NOTE: Some readers have had a hard time getting this cake to cook in the 2 1/2 hour allotted cooking time. Every crock pot cooks a little differently. You may want to leave yourself 3-3 1/2 hours cooking time. If your cake isn't cooking quickly enough, you could also turn the crock pot setting to high for the last 15 minutes or so. This recipe takes a little experimenting with, depending on how fast your crock pot cooks.***
Recipe from Better Homes and Gardens
Tried this recipe and at first I was a little disappointed, not sure whether it was my crock pot or whether I did something wrong following the recipe but I let it “bake” for a good 2 1/2 hrs on low and was excited to eat when it looked like it still wasnt done. There was no cake feel to it and it was still all very gooey. I almost gave up because recipe doesn’t mention it taking more than 3 hrs.. Decided to put it on high for about 30 mins and then the kitchen finally smelled like cake baking but started to get that burnt smell in the air. I was sure it was game over when I finally turned it off after letting it sit 30 mins on high, it finally looked like a chocolate lava cake! Although it didn’t come out the way I hoped for, with ice cream it was still pretty good. I don’t think I’ll be making it again though. Off to a new recipe 🙂 thanks Jamie for the fun n easy recipe and the pictures really helped
Thank you very very much for the recepi,very clear to instructions. I’m doing it right now, and I can’t wait! Thanks!
I wonder if instead of using boxed chocolate cake it would be equally good using my own mocha cake recipe… what u think? I really wanna make this for a dinner party tonight but i dont like boxed cake :/
Sol,
I haven’t ever tried it with a “from scratch” recipe, let me know if you try it and how it goes. Good luck!
~Jamie
This recipe soudns great .we will try it! Have not sold our house yet, so we have not moved to Lawrence, KS yet! Just takes time! Hi to all!
I had the same problem a few others seemed to be having, after the 2 1/2 hours, it still wasn’t set, just a gooey mess (which was still delicious) i just wish it had been more “cakey.”
Could you make the cake using a healthier alternative to the oil such as apple sauce or using the diet soda method? Also, I only have a 6 qt crock pot. Do you think I could double the recipe?
I made this to serve to company. It was still liquid after 2.75 hrs….very disappointing. I turned it up to high and cooked another 1.5 and then it was done. I ended up eating it for breakfast. Very good but instructions were not accurate.
I’m sure it depends on the strength of the crock pot. I have a large crock pot and I followed the directions and it was perfect.
I am cooking this now. A couple questions: I couldn’t find 3.9 oz (“small box”) pudding so I did 2×2.1 oz sugar free puddings. Now I made the pudding part with just over 2 cups of milk. It was REALLY thick, thicker than pie filling. I gloped it into the crock pot with the hopes that was right. It didn’t pie like in your picture. Did I goof this up?
I couldn’t get the cake to set in the middle 🙁 It cooked on low for 5 hours and only the sides on one half started to set. My pudding seemed heavier than the cake mix so I think it might have went to the bottom of the pot instead of staying on top of the cake mix. Do you think that could have caused my cake not to work or maybe I did something else wrong?