This weekend I tried this recipe for easy chocolate pudding cake with whipped cream topping. My family (other than me :)) tends to prefer whipped cream or swiss meringue type frosting as compared to regular American buttercream so when I saw this recipe I knew I wanted to try it.
To be honest, I was a little skeptical of the cake portion of this recipe. It is just a box of chocolate cake mix, a box of instant pudding mix, milk and chocolate chips. There are no eggs and no butter or oil. I was really surprised but it works! I loved the chewy, dense texture of the cake contrasted with the light whipped cream on top. I had to stop myself from eating a second piece.
The best part is this probably took me 5 minutes of actual work to make and about 25 minutes of baking time. I used real whipped cream here but you can also use Cool Whip if you like it. Is cool whip just a midwest thing, or did anyone else grow up eating it on all your desserts? We used to eat it out of the tub with a spoon too 🙂 I still love it, but real whipped cream is SO good here too.
My trick for dealing with my extra cakes that use whipped cream are to take a few pieces out that we will eat that day, then place the cake into the freezer for about an hour or two depending on your freezer. You want it firm but not fully frozen. Then cut into individual servings and place back into the freezer until fully frozen. You can then wrap each individual piece in plastic wrap for long term freezing and pull a few out as needed.
The Easiest Chocolate Pudding Cake
Ingredients
- 1 box chocolate cake mix
- 1 3.4oz box instant chocolate pudding
- 1 bag chocolate chips I used my fav milk chocolate chips from Ghirardelli
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1 16oz tub cool whip or equivalent real whipped cream I just eyeballed the whipped cream, it was probably about 2 cups of cream and 1/4 cup of powdered sugar and a tsp of vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a 9×13 pan. Mix the cake mix and pudding mix in a bowl and whisk to combine. Add the milk and whisk. Fold in the chocolate chips and spread the mixture in the pan.
- Bake until a toothpick comes out clean in the center. This was about 25 min for me. Cool completely.
- If using cool whip, spread over the top and top with sprinkles. If using cream, whip in the stand mixer with powdered sugar and vanilla until it forms soft peaks, then spread on cooled cake and top with sprinkles. If you want the cream to hold up better for a party or just at home, you can stabilize the whipped cream by adding 1 tsp powdered gelatin dissolved in 4 tsp of water per 1 cup of cream to stabilize it.