Chocolate Polenta Pudding Cake

Chocolate, pudding, and cake–what’s not to love? This chocolate pudding cake is so rich, so creamy–just waves of chocolate intensity. I’ve had other polenta cakes but none that have this ethereal pudding-like texture.

Bake this for chocoholics, special occasions, or more simply, as a project for a rainy day. Another bonus for those serving gluten-free eaters–it’s flourless. It’s also forgiving of mistakes.

Unbeknownst to me, I used instant polenta, which cooked up in 1 minute instead of the prescribed 20 minutes. I also forgot the vanilla. The final cake wasn’t adversely affected. It looked beautiful.

I dusted the top lightly with powdered sugar and garnished it with lavender sprigs cut from my garden.

Chocolate dessert lovers, this chocolate polenta pudding cake is for you! We enjoyed every rich morsel of this bittersweet treat.

While the oven was on, the chocolatey aroma permeated our entire house. So you can just imagine how difficult it was to wait for the cake to set overnight before we could dig in. Let me tell you, it was well worth the wait!

This chocolate polenta cake recipe instantly appealed to me because it reminded me of a delicious Sicilian chocolate wheat-berry dish (cuccia) that my aunt would make every year for the feast of St. Lucy.

This decadent flourless dessert received an overwhelming endorsement from my family and has been inducted into the special dessert section of my three-ring recipe binder.

Dear Merriam-Webster, please put a photo of this chocolate polenta pudding cake in your dictionary beside the word “decadent.” The first bite made me think a bit because I’m not familiar with the texture of polenta in a sweet dish. This recipe definitely delivers on its pudding-like promise, because it’s ultra moist, but the mouthfeel is more interesting than run-of-the-mill pudding, and that’s down to the clever way polenta is incorporated.

And then there’s the deep dark chocolate flavor that would have made me feel guilty, but thank goodness I convinced myself that all that butter and sugar are offset by the lack of gluten. Phew!

This is the type of recipe you want in your back pocket for occasions when you really want to impress people with how fancy you are. But don’t be like me and get caught without a raspberry coulis, a dry white, or something–anything–tart to balance how rich this dish is.

Hot tip: the leftovers store perfectly on a plate in the fridge under a dry tea towel or one of those microwave splatter lids.

I was intrigued by this polenta cake and truly didn’t know what to expect from the finished product. It turned out to be a huge hit!

The recipe is adamant about refrigerating the cake overnight before cutting into it. But there was zero percent chance I was going to pack that cake away before trying it. And I am so glad I did!

It was absolutely heavenly while warm: light and airy yet somehow pudding-like. I think it would make a terrific warm cast-iron skillet cake!

After spending one night in the refrigerator, the cake was still delicious; I served it to my mom and her friend, and they were bowled over. They described it as “soufflé-like, rich and creamy yet light in texture”; it was the perfect ending to a meal. The texture is definitely a bit different from most cakes, but we all agreed that it was not problematic. It’s a terrific gluten-free option as well!

I would like to try it with instant polenta next time because the only time-consuming part of the whole recipe was stirring the polenta for 20 minutes. I served this with lightly sweetened whip cream and coffee. Love, love, love it!

I confess. I’m not really a pudding or a mousse person; I prefer pie to cake. But I do love polenta and fudgy-type brownies, so I decided to give this chocolate polenta pudding cake recipe a test drive. I’m glad I did. It was a home run for me and my family tasters.

It was a cinch to make. And quick! The polenta came together as it should, although it took a bit longer on my finicky propane cooktop.

I was unsure about the baking instructions…how much jiggle to accept. Too much jiggle at 30 minutes. I pulled the cake out at 40 minutes and let it sit for a while. In hindsight, another 5 minutes wouldn’t have hurt, but that depends on how mousse-y you want the center.

Final result: great taste and a good balance of textures. It’s rich. I didn’t dust it with confectioner’s sugar because I liked the look of the slightly crusty top. I didn’t serve it with anything, although a fruit compote (summer berries or orange) would be a nice complement.

My only caution: Don’t let it sit around too long at room temperature; the center will start to weep. But if you have any size crowd at hand, this won’t be an issue, as it will disappear in a flash. We didn’t have a crowd, and it kept nicely in the fridge for several days.

I really enjoyed this fairly simple and quite decadent chocolate polenta cake. As the author so correctly states, it’s “airy and light and pudding-like all at once, with a little extra texture courtesy of the softened polenta.”

Other than the time spent initially cooking the polenta, the process was fairly effortless.

I did have the unfortunate experience of batter leaking out of the bottom of my springform pan while in the oven.

The cake baked to a slight jiggle with a somewhat-dry top in about 40 minutes. It was refrigerated overnight and easily released from the pan. It was dusted with the confectioners’ sugar and served plain.

The taste, however, was anything but plain. An overall wonderful, deeply-rich chocolate flavor with an interesting “little extra texture” from the polenta. And an intermittent pudding-like smoothness, similar to a molten cake, which was very pleasing. An interesting, delicious chocolate cake. One that I will clearly be baking again.