Chocolate Coffee Cake with Sour Cream Topping

This simple and incredibly moist chocolate cake will delight everyone who tastes it. Richly marbled with cooked pudding cream, topped with a generous layer of refreshing sour cream. Make this scrumptious cake for parties or birthdays easily at home!

➜ About this chocolate coffee cake

The recipe features a simple coffee cake that consists of three layers. The foundation makes a sponge cake-like base on which hot cooked chocolate pudding is poured. The pudding falls into the cake batter during baking, creating fancy irregular waves in the cake. As a final layer on the freshly baked cake comes fresh sour cream mixed with sugar.

Where does the recipe come from? You can find the authentic recipe in Czech cuisine, where this coffee cake is extremely popular. Czechs call it "pudinková buchta se zakysanou smetanou", what literally means "pudding coffee cake with sour cream".

And why is it called a coffee cake? Although the cake has the word coffee in its name, don't be confused. It doesn't have any coffee in it, it's named a coffee cake because it goes great with a cup of coffee and makes a perfect way to start a new day in the morning.

MY TIP: Try bublanina, another famous Czech coffee cake with fruit on top (it tastes fantastic!)

➜ Ingredients

Coffee cake with chocolate pudding and sour cream requires the following ingredients:

• Eggs; taken out of the fridge about an hour before they can come to room temperature. Alternatively, dip the eggs in warm water for five minutes. Warmed eggs will go better beaten to a foamy consistency.
• Granulated sugar
• All-purpose flour; or plain flour in the UK
• Baking powder
• Cocoa powder; unsweetened
• Milk; semi-skimmed (1.5%) or full-fat (3% fat content), preferably at room temperature
• Vegetable oil; sunflower or rapeseed

• Chocolate pudding powder; I used Dr. Oetker Original Pudding to make the pudding cream, which can be bought on Amazon.com or in grocery stores that offer Polish or German products. The pudding powder contains mainly cornstarch and chocolate flavor. The pudding has to be cooked in cow's milk and sweetened with granulated sugar.
• Milk; semi-skimmed or full-fat milk. When making the pudding, I use a little less milk than the manufacturer's instructions on the packet to make the pudding thicker so it holds together nicely in the cake and does not melt.
• Granulated sugar; for sweetening

➜ Instructions with photos

STEP 1: Grease a 9x13-inch baking tray with a piece of butter and dust it with flour or breadcrumbs. To get rid of any excess flour, turn the baking tray onto a work surface and tap it gently.

STEP 2: Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl: flour, cocoa, and baking powder.

STEP 3: In a mixing bowl, whisk the whole eggs in a bowl using an electric handheld mixer and beat them with the sugar on medium speed until a foamy mass is created. Gradually add the sugar as you increase the speed of the mixer. If the eggs are warmed to room temperature, and you are patient for 5 minutes or so, you will whip up a lovely fluffy foam. The wet mixture turns light in color while you whisk, the sugar will gradually dissolve, and the whole mass will thicken slightly.

Reduce the mixer speed to a minimum and gradually add the prepared dry flour mixture, milk, and oil to the beaten egg mass. Mix until everything is combined into a semi-liquid sponge cake batter with a light brown color.

STEP 4: Pour the batter onto the prepared baking sheet and smooth the surface.

STEP 5: Cook the chocolate pudding according to the manufacturer's instructions. I make pudding by heating the milk gently, whisking in the pudding powder and sugar, and bringing it to a boil over medium heat. I keep stirring so that no lumps form in the pudding.

Pour the hot pudding zigzag over the batter. Try not to let the pudding cover the surface in a uniform layer but leave gaps between the zigzags through which you can see the underlying batter.

STEP 6: Preheat the oven to 170 °C (lower and upper heating). Put the coffee cake in the oven and bake for 30–40 minutes. The cake will puff up as it bakes. At the end of the baking time, test for doneness. Poke a skewer into the highest point to see if the cake is cooked. If the skewer comes out dry, you are done. If there is any batter residue on the skewer, let the cake bake for another 5 minutes and repeat the test with the skewer.

STEP 7: While the cake is baking, make the last cake layer of sour cream. Simply whisk the sour cream with sugar. When you take the cake out of the oven, immediately pour the sour cream on top and smooth the surface with a spoon or an offset spatula. It will become thinner with the heat and will spread well over the entire surface.

STEP 8: Allow to cool at room temperature. Finally, I recommend putting the cake in the fridge overnight. The sour cream will firm up and won't run when slicing the cake.

➜ Serving

Cut the cold cake into about 4x4 inch (10x10 cm) slices and serve on a dessert plate with a cup of good coffee for breakfast or at family gatherings.

For an excellent presentation and to enhance the flavor, lightly dust the cake with ground cinnamon and cocoa powder when serving.

➜ Size of a baking dish

I baked this chocolate coffee cake in a 9x13 inch baking dish. The finished cake is about 1 ½ inches high.

➜ Storage

Because the cake contains a layer of fresh sour cream, store leftovers in the refrigerator, where they will keep for up to five days. 

When storing, cover the baking dish with the entire cake with plastic wrap to prevent the surface of the cake from drying out. Alternatively, cut the cake into slices and store them in an airtight container in the fridge.

➜ Useful tips

• Play around with the contrast of the layers: don't add cocoa powder to the batter, but bake it in a blond style. Or use vanilla pudding and pour it over the batter to which you have added cocoa powder.
• Add more sour cream to the final layer, the chocolate cake will be fresher and even moister.

More coffee cakes:

• Cream cheese coffee cake
• Strawberry coffee cake
• Zucchini spice cake