22 hot cocoa recipes

Old-fashioned chocolate sheet cake with a boiled cocoa frosting that goes on while everything's still hot. Buttermilk keeps it moist, chopped nuts add crunch. Ready in under an hour.

Panforte is the dense, chewy Sienese Christmas cake packed with toasted hazelnuts and almonds, dates, cherries, cocoa, and warm spices, bound by hot honey caramel. A traditional Italian holiday confection.

No-egg applesauce cake with cocoa, warm spices, raisins, and nuts. Three cups of hot applesauce replace the eggs and most of the fat for an incredibly moist, spiced sheet cake.

Vegan self-saucing chocolate pudding cake with walnuts. Hot water poured over cocoa-sugar batter creates a fudgy chocolate sauce underneath as the cake bakes. No eggs, no dairy, total magic.

Dr. Pepper cake is a Texas-born sheet cake using the soda for moisture and faint cherry-cola notes. Topped with warm Dr. Pepper cocoa frosting poured over the hot cake.

A thin, fudgy chocolate sheet cake with sour cream for moisture, topped with a warm boiled cocoa icing poured on while still hot. Bakes in a jelly roll pan and feeds a big crowd fast.