Celebrations Chocolate Slow Cooker Cake

Did you know you could make cake in the slow cooker? I didn’t. Or at least, not until recently.

Having purchased a slow cooker in the last few weeks, I’ve been looking for recipes to use it for. As we’re mainly vegetarian, there actually aren’t many “exciting” dishes we can make with it that aren’t similar variations of other things. Sure, there’s curries and chillies and soups, but there’s only so many incantations of lentils and black beans that can make a girl happy, am I right? Don’t get wrong, I love being able to throw things in the pot and let it do its thing without having to worry about standing and stirring, but there is something inherently more delicious about tender, juicy, fall-off-your-fork slow cooked meat than there is slow cooked quinoa.

Which was exactly how I stumbled upon the notion of baking in the slow cooker. This recipe is made with Celebrations chocolates (the miniatures of popular chocolate bars), but you could easily substitute your favourite chocolates (caramels, Maltesers, Chocolate Orange, After Eights, etc.) I actually don’t eat or buy Celebrations all that often, but when I saw a bag of them on discount at a local store, I was compelled to pick them up and do something with them. Whenever I eat Celebrations, I’m always reminded of the Christmas episode of Gavin and Stacey where Nessa gives them out as presents. Too funny.

After tasting eating all of this slow cooker cake, I’d have to say that the advantage of the clow cooker over regular oven baking is that it retains the moisture in the cake, making it more gooey than dry or cakey. So if you like your brownies/blondies/cakes to be gooey and super moist, this may be a great cooking method for you. As my slow cooker seems to take longer to cook than other models, I had to put a tea towel underneath the lid for the last part of cooking to speed up the process, as the outside was cooking quicker than the centre and I didn’t want it to burn. This absorbs the moisture from the lid and helps cook things quicker, although it does eliminate some of the aforementioned “gooeyness”.

Celebrations Chocolate Slow Cooker Cake

Recipe by Julia

Servings

8

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

3

hours

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups (190g) plain flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 cup (50g) cocoa powder

• 1 cup (200g) light brown sugar

• 1/2 cup (125g) butter

• 3 eggs

• 6 fl oz (180ml) milk – I used almond milk

• A bag of Celebrations chocolates – or any individual flavoured chocolates that you prefer

Directions

• Grease and line the bowl of your slow cooker (see top photo for how it should look – there should be some paper sticking out of the top to make it easier to remove later).
• In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and cocoa.
• In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together and then add the eggs, one at a time, mixing fully after each one has been added. Add the milk and combine until smooth.
• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir to combine.
• Pour the batter into the slow cooker and place a handful of chocolates on top.
• Put the lid on and cook for 2-3 hours on high. Halfway through the cooking time, remove the lid and place another handful of chocolates on top (because the originals will have sunk into the cake). The cake is cooked when it is firm and a skewer comes out of the centre clean.