Slow Cooker Steamed Chocolate Pudding with Hot Chocolate Sauce

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Deliciously chocolatey, fluffy, light as a feather Slow Cooker Steamed Chocolate Pudding with Hot Chocolate Sauce, is wonderfully quick to make, easy to cook and fabulous to eat! The luscious chocolate sauce is rich, thick and bursting with dark and milk chocolate, as well as fresh cream and golden syrup. Delicious served as is, or with your choice from ice cream, cream or even custard.

Steamed sponge puddings are incredibly moreish, comforting bowls of nostalgic heaven, still relevant and holding their own after decades on the menu! I can remember my grandmothers making them many years ago, and I enjoy them now, as much as I did then.

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I steam the pudding in my Slow Cooker. I love cooking this way because it rarely, if ever, runs out of water and does not fill the kitchen with steam. You can prepare the dessert a few hours before you need it, set it to cook, and a few hours later, perfectly cooked dessert, ready for the table. Even better, steamed puddings are pretty forgiving, and will still be utterly delicious and unspoilt, if dessert is served later than planned. If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can use a saucepan on the hob or a steam oven. 

How to make Slow Cooker Steamed Chocolate Pudding with Hot Chocolate Sauce

The light and fluffy sponge is yet another dessert based on my Sponge Cake – Core Recipe. In fact, the sponge cake is exactly the same as the Chocolate Sponge Cake I posted to celebrate Captain Tom’s 100th birthday in April 2020. However, instead of baking the cake in the oven, it is steamed.

Collect all your ingredients together:

For the Steamed Chocolate Pudding –

• unsalted butter, at room temperature
• caster sugar
• eggs
• fine salt
• milk
• plain flour
• unsweetened cocoa powder
• instant coffee powder
• baking powder

For the Hot Chocolate Sauce –

• fresh double/heavy cream
• golden syrup
• milk chocolate
• dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
• vanilla paste
• sea salt (optional)

How to make the Steamed Chocolate Pudding:

1. It is important to make sure the butter is at room temperature and soft enough to beat easily with the other ingredients. If not at room temperature, beat well before adding the remaining ingredients. See here for information on softening butter.
2. Weigh in the sugar, and add the eggs, fine salt and milk
3. Place a sieve on top of the bowl, zero the scales, and weigh in the flour, cocoa, baking powder and coffee. Sieve.
4. Use an electric whisk to beat until combined.
5. Grease a 2 pint/1.2 litre pudding basin and the lid thoroughly with butter.
6. Transfer the sponge mix to the greased bowl and level the surface of the cake batter.
7. Seal with a lid and steam cook for 2½ hours. I do this in my slow cooker. (See below)

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Different ways to steam.

I normally cook my steamed puddings in my slow cooker. However, they can also be cooked in a Steam oven or in a saucepan. See below.

• in a slow cooker – before you start making the dessert, fill a slow cooker ⅓ full with boiling water and set on high to heat up. When you add the pudding bowl make sure the water is nowhere near the lid. Steam on high with the lid on. I love cooking this way (as opposed to using a saucepan on the hob) because it rarely, if ever, runs out of water and does not fill the kitchen with steam.
• in a saucepan – sit the pudding bowl in a saucepan and add boiling water to come half way up to the sides of the bowl. Bring to a simmer, put the lid on and regularly check that the water does not run dry. When it is low, top up with more boiling water. Typically the bowl is sat on an inverted saucer in the base of the saucepan. However it can rattle a lot and be noisy. As long as there is sufficient water, I find you do not need this.
• in a steam oven – cook according to oven instructions.

Whilst the sponge steams, make the Hot Chocolate Sauce:

You can either make this just before you serve the dessert, or make it ahead of time and re-heat when ready.

1. Break up the chocolate and add to a pan with the cream, golden syrup, vanilla paste and salt, if using.
2. Warm over a low heat, stirring from time to time, until the chocolate has melted and you have a luscious, thick sauce.
3. This sauce can be made in advance, which I normally do, and then re-heat it when you are ready to serve the dessert.

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To serve:

1. Carefully remove the pudding from the steamer and leave to sit for 5 minutes before un-moulding.
2. Loosen the edges with a palette knife. Place a plate (with a lip to catch the chocolate sauce) over top of the pudding and turn both over together at the same time to invert the pudding. Use oven gloves as the bowl will be very hot.
3. Pour over the hot chocolate sauce

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Made this recipe?

If you make this recipe, do please tag me on instagram @daffodil_kitchen. You could also leave a comment in the box directly below the recipe.