Poke cake is a fun dessert trend that has been reinvented by creative cooks over and over again. To make a poke cake, you quite literally poke holes in a sheet cake. (It is really easy to poke holes in the cake with the back end of a wooden spoon.)
This Chocolate Poke Cake is rich, moist, chocolate, and topped with a whipped coffee frosting – plus the added flavoring of mocha. If you love poke cake recipes, make sure you check out this lemon poke cake. And let us know what you think when you try this Better than Sex Poke Cake.
(This post and recipe was originally written by Rebecca Hubbell of Sugar and Soul. It has since been updated.)
Chocolate Poke Cake:
Historically, with a poke cake, colorful Jello was used with white cakes to create rivers of surprise color and flavor into what was usually a boxed cake mix. Easy-peasy, yet super fun for holidays, Sunday suppers, and the neighborhood barbeque.
These days, Poke cakes are all different flavors and filled with things like sweetened condensed milk, fruit puree, pastry cream… and my favorite… CHOCOLATE!
Our banana pudding poke cake and Hawaiian wedding cake are great examples of non traditional (and delicious!) poke cake recipes. And our Chocolate Peanut Butter Lasagna is another great recipe with a similar flavor profile.
Ingredients Needed for this Poke Cake
For the Cake
- 1 Box Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix
- 3.9 oz. Package Jell-O Instant Chocolate Pudding
- 1 tbsp Instant Espresso Powder
- 4 Eggs
- 1 cup Sour Cream
- 3/4 cup Vegetable Oil
- 1/2 cup Milk
- 1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/4 tsp Sea Salt
- 1½ cup Mini Chocolate Chips
- 1 cup Hot Fudge or Chocolate Syrup
For the Frosting
- 2 cups Heavy Cream
- 1/2 cup Confectioners’ Sugar
- 1/3 cup Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix Powder dry
- 1 tbsp Coffee Extract
How to Make a Poke Cake
This mocha poke cake is so easy to whip up. It fits in with the original intent of poke cake for sure! Easy, easy, easy…
The base is a rich chocolate sheet cake that starts from a mix (because, did I mention easy?) and is made extra rich and moist with some additions such as chocolate pudding mix, sour cream, chocolate chips, and a bit of espresso powder.
Once the cake comes out of the oven, you can use the handle of a wooden spoon to make evenly spaced holes across the cake.
Pour fudge (or keep it easy and use a bottle of chocolate syrup) across the cooled cake and let all that chocolate goodness seep into the holes you poked in your cake.
When the cake is totally cooled, top it with a rich, homemade cream frosting and drizzle with chocolate sauce.
The vanilla flavored frosting is just the right thing to balance the rich chocolate cake and filling.
More Poke Cake Recipes You Will Love:
More Chocolate Dessert Recipes:
Mocha Poke Cake
Ingredients
CAKE
- 1 Box Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix
- 3.9 oz. Package Jell-O Instant Chocolate Pudding
- 1 tbsp Instant Espresso Powder
- 4 Eggs
- 1 cup Sour Cream
- ¾ cup Vegetable Oil
- ½ cup Milk
- 1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
- ¼ tsp Sea Salt
- 1½ cup Mini Chocolate Chips
- 1 cup Hot Fudge or Chocolate Syrup
FROSTING
- 2 cups Heavy Cream
- 1/2 cup Confectioners’ Sugar
- 1/3 cup Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix Powder dry
- 1 tbsp Coffee Extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Grease 9 x 13 x 2 in baking pan.
- Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl or stand mixer until fully combined, scraping down the sides as necessary.
- Pour batter into the greased cake pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until toothpick comes clean.
- Remove from pan and allow to cool in pan.
- Once cake has cooled, poke holes in the cake, and pour hot fudge or chocolate syrup evenly over the cake.
- Combine all frosting ingredients in a stand mixer and beat until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
- Spread frosting out over the top of the cake and drizzle with additional chocolate syrup.
Yum – this is a favorite for us, I can’t wait to make it again!
Absolutely delicious and the fam were very happy!
This looks so good and rich. Thank you for sharing.
can’t wait to try this when my son comes to visit
I could eat this entire cake! Not even kidding. I like how easy it is to make and it’s the perfect cake to bring to family and friends!
Is the Instant expresso powder the same as the instant expresso coffee?
Yes!