Slow Cooker Sticky Toffee Pudding
Christina Tosi’s Crockpot Cake
- Total Time
- About 5 hours
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- ½pound/226 grams unsalted butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
- 1¼cups/250 grams granulated sugar
- ¼cup/45 grams packed light brown sugar
- 3large eggs
- 1½teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¾cup/180 milliliters buttermilk
- ⅓cup/80 milliliters neutral oil, like canola or grapeseed
- 1½cups/180 grams cake flour
- 1teaspoon baking powder
- 1teaspoon kosher salt
Preparation
- Step 1
Put all but 1 tablespoon of the butter and the sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer and cream with the paddle attachment at medium-high speed, until the mixture is smooth and pale, approximately 3 to 4 minutes. Mix in the eggs and vanilla, then continue to mix for another 3 minutes, until fluffy. Add the buttermilk and oil and mix briefly to combine.
- Step 2
Set the mixer to a very low speed and add the cake flour, baking powder and salt, mixing for a minute or so and scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice, until the batter has just come together, with no lumps.
- Step 3
Use the remaining tablespoon of butter to grease the interior of a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, then pour the batter into the pot. Cover and cook on low for somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 to 6 hours, until the cake has set and is cooked through at the center. To serve, run a knife around the edge of the slow cooker to loosen the cake and then carefully invert onto a platter, or simply spoon the cake out of the slow cooker.
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Private Notes
Cooking Notes
Baked in the oven at 300degrees, in a 9" springform, for 75 minutes. Greased the pan w/butter, lined the bottom with parchament paper, and buttered the paper. Actually, since I wasn't sure what temp to try, I started it at 350, reduced it to 325 for maybe 15 minutes until I just trusted my gut and lowered it to 300. I didn't want the top to brown too quickly, and the cake is sorta tall (which is why I couldn't use standard height cake pans). Next time I'll just start @ 300 and bake til done.
How does one invert a cake out of an insert in a slow cooker? Seems like it would break up on inversion.
Thanks for suggesting this. I tried it and it works. 9" springform, 300 degrees, 75+ minutes. I made more detailed notes above. I loved the crumb and tight texture of this cake, and there's such a lovely tang to it. It's simply delicious.
My guests loved this cake, especially when it was warm, just out of the slow cooker. I thought it was too sweet. When I make this again I plan to cut the sugar down by at least 1/4 cup.
Claudia is right on. Did the cake in a springform pan, cooked @300F for 75 minutes. Perfect. My husband called it a keeper recipe.
No, no, a thousand times, no. I have tried this cake twice, following the directions to the letter, and both times the cake was burned on the outside and nearly raw on the inside.
Take the time to use a real recipe with a real oven, and leave the crock pot for meat dishes.
this is supposed to be easy???
NOT
I wanted to try this because baking in the summer can make the kitchen too hot, so cooking a cake in a crock pot seemed like a good trick. But the recipe didn't work well for me. I cooked the cake for 4 hours on low, then one on high, then two more on low, and I still had a liquidy middle. It tasted okay, sort of like a very very sweet pudding cake, but it wasn't worth the trouble. Even the three sweet-toothed children weren't convinced. Glad I tried it, though!
After reading all the comments, I took the risk and attempted cooking the batter in a rice cooker. Left it to cook for roughly 1 hr 30 mins and it was cooked almost perfectly (a little over-cooked at the bottom).
I would try this recipe again and take it out a little before.
This is ridiculous. It's a simple cake like so many others that would take maybe an hour in the oven and require little attention and few manipulations. Curious how much energy an hour in the oven uses as opposed to 5 hours in a crockpot.
I took another commenter's suggestion and rotated my Crockpot liner several times throughout the five hours it took my cake to cook. Even so, one spot got awfully dark. Should have timed the rotations and been careful to do just a quarter turn each time. Delicious cake anyway, served hot with a spoon straight out of the Crockpot. My British husband's face lit up - he thought it was a treacle sponge.
I wanted to like this cake so I wouldn't need to turn on the oven, HOWEVER, it's not good. The slow cooker was fine. The batter was fine. It's just too sweet and greasy. It's not a good cake.
Not thrilled with the results. Definitely a burned taste on bottom which I carefully scraped off. Was nervous about the uncertainty of when to remove it. Ultimately I served it to college students with some "homemade" dulce de leche (via the crockpot!) and they were delighted. Wouldn't try again.
Sorry, this recipe is a parlor trick unless you don't have an oven and absolutely must have a cake to serve. It's so much more uncertain in outome that simply baking a cake as usual.
This cake is no more calorically dense than others; the suggested serving size is just bigger (six servings vs. 10 or even 12 in other cake recipes on this site). If you don't want to eat all the calories, eat a smaller slice.
First bust from a NYT recipe. Need to give us specific info on what kind of crock pot to use. After 6 hours, mine was still mush in the center. Taste would be good, will try again with suggestions from others using springform.
I'm curious: as crockpots vary from maker to maker, which one does she use? A high end, overly pricey one or your simple, everyday actual Crock Pot? I get it she does this for a living however it would be nice to have an insider's knowledge.
Sorry to hear that so many people had bad experiences with this cake, I like it myself. I love not having to turn the oven on in the summer, and it's an easy cake for my toddler to help make with me. We add berries on top if we have them.
Baked in 10in spring form pan buttered and sugared. Reduced white sugar by 1/4 cup. A bit lackluster on its own but serve warm with homemade whipped cream, 5/5!
We thought we had screwed up! But we added all ingredients to the blender and blitzed it and poured it into the pan. It was amazing light and fluffy! This happened purely by chance! Amazing fluffy and tasty! Highly recommend.
I think I've figured out the "this is still wet after 5 hours" problem: There is way too much batter. I made this by cutting the recipe in half and it cooked OK. There were some burnt edges but I think that's on me bc I started it on high for about 30 mins. Too much batter, cut it in half!
Meh. It's a novel idea to "bake" in the crockpot. Why take 4 hours what can be done in an hour? It's a dense cake, moist and crumbly at the same time. So far not a fan of Tosi's cake recipes (I have her cookbook). Though interested to see if her other crockpot cakes are better. Helpful hint: line the bottom of the crockpot with parchment paper, leave 2 sides with "handles" so you can lift the cake out. You still get cake in the end, so it's not a complete waste of time.
The bomb. Use oven at 375 for 45 minutes, cut sugar by 1/4 cup. See comments for help.
Even after six hours, about a third of the cake was raw. However the cooked part is absolutely delicious.
So you can put dairy in the slow cooker like milk?
I made the serious error of reading the notes below after the epic fail cake batter soup was already down the garbage disposal.
Bake it in an oven (350F) and call it good. I think it’s silly to spend 6 hours baking this cake in an instant pot on slow cook mode. I put half the batter in the instant pot and half the batter was baked in the oven (350F for 25 mins). The oven version was very tasty but overly sweet. I’m still waiting, 6 hours later, for the other half to be cooked. I think the cake is too sweet so if I ever make this again, I’ll cut the sugar by ¼ c.
Flavor is fantastic, but it didn’t set in my slow-cooker. Will try again in a springform!
Without AC in our house it is too hot to turn on the oven, so that is why I wanted to try this recipe. I used an Insta pot on the slow cooker function. The taste was delicious, but the top didn’t cook, and the bottom burned when I kept extending the time. So we just ate the middle but it was really good warm! Next time I might open the vent to see if that helps… or try the cake setting.
I made this cake twice. It was an epic fail the first time. I used my instant pot on the slow cookers setting. After 7 hours I had cake soup. It was an extremely humid day so I wonder if that contributed to the problem. I did it a second time in an actual crock pot. It took 6 hours. Turned out. Tastes ok.
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