I came across a Vanilla Bean Pudding Cake recipe from a King Arthur Flour email. As blog readers will know, KAF is a go-to source for me for baked goods, from savory to sweet. This recipe was particularly attractive for me because it hit two of my husband's favorite dessert features – vanilla and pudding.
The recipe was counterintuitive to put together, but ultimately was pretty easy – and definitely doable for a work night. I made just one modification, following the recipe comments. I reduced the amount of sugar in the cake to 1/2 cup and used slightly less than 1/2 cup of sugar for the sauce.
To assemble the pudding cake, you first simmer and thicken a vanilla pudding sauce on the stovetop, then pour it at the bottom of your baking dish.
Then you whisk together the dry and wet cake ingredients, first in individual bowls and then together.
Then you embark on the trickiest and most counterintuitive step – at least for me. You pour and spread the much thicker cake batter on top of the liquid pudding layer. Amazingly, you can in fact make a cake dough layer on top of the liquid layer, even though you expect it all to mix together. Just pour and spread carefully!
And then pop the cake mix into the oven, and test the center towards the end of the baking time to make sure the cake is baked through.
The cake layers are slightly visible after baking, and when you eat the cake, the sauce and cake mix together wonderfully to make a rich and warm dessert.
The only additional change I would make on top of keeping the reduced sugar amounts is to add a bit of fresh fruit or fruit compote to diversify the flavors a bit. But I definitely see myself making this again and again!
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