Vintage Chocolate Chip Cottage Pudding (Cake) Recipe

This chocolate chip cottage pudding recipe creates a fluffy and tender cake flecked with chocolate. It’s a simple cake that anyone can make.

I’ve loved trying vintage recipes since I was just a toddler standing on a vintage stool in my grandma’s kitchen as she taught me to make peanut butter cookies from the cookbook she got when she got married. I now have that cookbook and love to just look through it and also try things from it. 

I also love reading vintage magazines and finding recipes to try in them. Often the recipes are written in a way that can be hard to understand for beginner bakers. They just assumed people knew what to do with a lot of the steps.

Since I’ve been baking since I was a toddler and reading vintage recipes for almost as long I love to take these often forgotten and sometimes hard-to-understand recipes and test them and make them accessible for even beginners. 

The one I’m sharing today I found in a 1940s homemaking magazine. It was included in an Easter menu and sounded interesting and delicious. 

My husband loved the cake. He said it reminded him of the chocolate chip muffins I make but better. I can see this as it’s a lightly sweet cake on its own. It’s a keeper in this house!

What is Cottage Pudding?

Cottage pudding is an old-fashioned American dessert. It’s a somewhat plain dense cake that is generally served with a sweet sauce over it. 

There have been many variations over the years. I’ve seen a lot of recipes with a white cake with caramel, vanilla, or even chocolate sauce served over them. There seem to be almost endless variations out there. 

How to Make Chocolate Chip Cottage Pudding

Today I want to share a chocolate chip version of cottage pudding. This 1940s recipe was shared by a homemaker from Nebraska and was described by her as a “fluffy, tender cake flecked with semi-sweet chocolate.” That’s a pretty great description. 

It’s a very simple recipe with few ingredients needed and what is great about this version of cottage pudding is instead of a sauce it just calls for whipped cream. Honestly, it’s also really good on its own. 

Scroll down to find the full recipe card. There is a printable version as well!

You will need these ingredients:

• Butter
• Sugar
• Vanilla Extract
• Cake Flour
• Salt
• Baking Powder 
• Milk
• Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (or finely chopped chocolate bar)

I like to buy most of my ingredients from Thrive Market. They have a great selection of high-quality ingredients all for really good prices. I have a full review if you’d like more information. 

Thrive Market didn’t have cake flour when I ordered so I did get my cake flour from King Arthur Baking Company. I love their flour, it’s the best I’ve used for baking. It’s a flour company that a lot of professional bakers use. 

Now once you have all of your ingredients ready to go it’s time to make this really simple cake. Before we start mixing up our ingredients be sure to pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees and grease your cake pan. 

First, thoroughly cream softened butter, sugar, and vanilla. I like to use my KitchenAid stand mixer as it makes this task very simple, you can even start on your dry ingredients while it does its thing.

Sift together your remaining dry ingredients and then add them to your butter mixture alternating with the milk. I like to do half dry and then half wet. 

Stir in your chocolate and then pour into your prepared pan. Now you are ready to bake your cake!

You can serve as is but it’s even better if you serve it while warm with some whipped cream on top. 

If you aren’t sure the best cake pan to use for this cake I love using my Pyrex square pan. It’s a great cake pan, I’ve had mine for almost two decades and it’s still going strong. I have one with a lid which makes storing my cake easy.

How to Make a Vegan-Friendly Chocolate Chip Cottage Pudding

Because this is an egg-free cake it makes it easy to convert into a vegan-friendly dessert. The ingredient swaps you will need-

• Replace butter with vegetable shortening.
• Replace milk with dairy-free milk.
• Use a vegan-friendly semi-sweet chocolate.
• Top with a dairy-free whipped cream, fruit-based sauce, or other vegan-friendly sauce. 

These easy swaps will still leave you with a delicious cake that vegans and non-vegans alike will love. It’s also great for those that are allergic to dairy.

Do You Have to Use Cake Flour in this Cottage Pudding Recipe?

Wondering if you need to use cake flour in this chocolate chip cake recipe? You could use all-purpose flour if that’s all you have but it will create a denser cake and I’d recommend getting your hands on some cake flour for this recipe.

The main difference between all-purpose flour and cake flour is the gluten content. With bread flour, there is more protein which causes more gluten development which results in a chewy and denser texture which we want in breads. 

This is not what you want for a cake though. Cake flour has the lowest protein of all flours and that means less gluten develops which gives us soft and tender cake.

All-purpose flour is somewhere between bread and cake flour so it can work but it won’t give you as good of results. 

Now that we know what flour to use, it’s time for the full recipe. You can also print the recipe card to keep in your recipe binder so you will have it anytime you need it. 

Pin This Recipe For Later!