Hot chocolate fudge cake

Hot chocolate fudge sauce
Fudge sauce comes in many forms – some made with cocoa powder and evaporated milk, some with melted chocolate, some a combination of the two. The hot fudge sauce for this cake is the most luxurious of its kind – pourable chocolate ganache that’s made with just chocolate and cream.

Chocolate fudge sauce ingredients
The ratio of chocolate to cream is 1:1 for ganache. However, as I want the sauce to be slightly thicker when warm, I’ve increased the chocolate slightly so it’s 1/ 1/4 cups of chocolate (200g) to 1 cup / 250ml of cream.

Dark chocolate – I use standard baking dark chocolate melts or chips (US: semi-sweet chocolate chips). You can also use chopped 50 – 70% dark chocolate (Lindt is my favourite).

Chocolate melts are just a type of chocolate chips that is available here in Australia. It comes in a disc shape and is designed to melt easily and smoothly. Whereas chocolate chips, while they can also be used for melting, are designed specifically to hold their shape for your favourite chocolate chip cookies rather than melting into puddles.

Milk and white chocolate – These will work but you will need to reduce the amount of cream slightly else the fudge sauce will be too runny. This is because they are softer than dark chocolate. Fellow baking nerds can read more about this in my Chocolate Ganache recipe!

Cream – Either heavy / thickened cream or pure cream will work here. Full fat essential. Reduced fat doesn’t always mix properly into the chocolate and also the sauce will be too thin.

How to make Hot Chocolate Fudge Cake
Get the cake in the oven first. Then make the chocolate fudge sauce – it will need 20 to 30 minutes to cool a bit to allow it to thicken slightly before using.

1. Making the hot fudge cake
Just mixed up in one bowl with a whisk. No stand-mixer or electric beater required. This is a very forgiving cake. Just be sure to get it in the oven as soon as you mix the batter, don’t leave it lying around.

How to make Hot chocolate fudge cake
Mix Dry – Whisk the Dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Add Wet – Add the Wet ingredients, except the boiling water, into the same bowl.

Whisk until combined. Then whisk the boiling water in. The batter will be pretty thin – not as thin as the Chocolate Cake on which this recipe is based, but still pretty thin.

Pour the batter into a lined 20cm/8″ pan. It’s best not to use a springform pan to avoid any chance of batter leakage – because as noted above, the batter is fairly thin.
Making Hot chocolate fudge cake
Making Hot chocolate fudge cake
How to make hot chocolate fudge cake
Bake for 40 minutes at 180°C/350°F (160°C fan) or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean or nearly clean. Remember, we’re making a hot fudge cake here, so it’s fine if the centre is slightly damp! 🙂

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then turn it out and let it cool for just another 10 minutes before slicing to serve. Don’t worry, the cake will still be lovely and warm! We just want to rest the cake a bit before slicing. Hot cake is very delicate!

2. Making the hot fudge sauce
While it’s tempting to just put both cold cream and chocolate in a bowl and microwave to melt, this can lead to the chocolate seizing so you end up with a lumpy mess in your hands. Yep, speaking from first hand experience here! Make ganache properly – by pouring hot cream over the chocolate and leaving it to melt before mixing to combine.

How to make hot chocolate sauce
Pour hot cream over chocolate – Heat the cream until steamy and hot using whatever method you choose: saucepan or microwave. Then pour it over the chocolate in a bowl.

Full coverage! Shake the bowl / poke as needed to ensure all the chocolate is submerged.

5 minutes – Cover with a plate and leave for 5 minutes so the cream melts the chocolate.

Mix until the cream and chocolate combine into a glossy chocolate sauce. Be patient – it will happen! If you have little chocolate lumps at the end, just pop it in the microwave for 20 seconds for a heat boost, then mix again.

How to make hot chocolate sauce
Cool for 20 minutes to let the sauce thicken slightly. Just leave it in the bowl.

Serving – Give it a mix to make it smooth again. Then pour into serving jugs to let everyone help themselves. (Or, if you’re concerned about portion control, you can serve it!).

Reheating and storage – The chocolate sauce will firm up to a peanut butter consistency when refrigerated but can simply be reheated in the microwave back to perfect pourable consistency. It will keep for at least a week – just bear in mind the shelf life of the cream.

3. Serving the hot fudge cake
To serve this gloriously cosy, decadent hot chocolate cake, cut slices of cake as generous as you want. Put on a plate – or a shallow bowl (for easy chocolate-sauce-melted-ice-cream scooping). Top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream then douse with warm chocolate fudge sauce. Dive in and swoon!!

Pouring sauce over Hot chocolate fudge cake
And 10 seconds later…..

Matters of storage
The cake has an excellent shelf life of 5 to 7 days in the fridge. It won’t go stale thanks to the smidge of oil we’re using, and also because it is intended to serve hot. Any baked good heated up wipes out any trace of staleness!

The fudge sauce can also be kept for at least 7 days, limited only by the shelf life of the cream. Keep it in the fridge – it will firm up to a peanut butter like consistency. Scoop out what you need, then just microwave to re-melt.

And PS, in case you’re concerned, there’s plenty of hot fudge sauce for serving. 2 whole cups, that’s 500 ml. Imagine running out of chocolate sauce! Devastating