Gingerbread Pudding Cake (Slow Cooker)

This is a Taste of Home recipe that I have had my eye on for awhile because it is a pudding cake and it is a slow cooker recipe. I thought it would be a win, win recipe, but it wasn't.

Gingerbread Pudding Cake

Ingredients

Photo from Taste of Home

1/4 cup butter, softened
  1/4 cup sugar
  1 egg white
  1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  1/2 cup molasses
  1 cup water
  1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  1/4 teaspoon salt
  1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
  1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  1/2 cup chopped pecans
  TOPPING:
  6 tablespoons brown sugar
  3/4 cup hot water
  2/3 cup butter, melted

Directions
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg white and vanilla. Combine molasses and water. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, allspice and nutmeg; gradually add to creamed mixture alternately with molasses mixture, beating well after each addition. Fold in pecans.
Pour into a greased 3-qt. slow cooker. Sprinkle with brown sugar. Combine hot water and butter; pour over batter (do not stir).
Cover and cook on high for 2 to 2-1/2 hours or until a toothpick inserted near center of cake comes out clean. Turn off heat. Let stand for 15 minutes. Serve warm. Yield: 6-8 servings.

So, usually with pudding cakes, you put the hot water on top, and it magically bakes up a cake in pudding. This ended up being a weird gelatinous cake, reminiscent of the strawberry bread I made once, and no pudding. The taste was very rich, most likely due to the abundance of butter. I don't recommend this recipe, but it for some reason you feel compelled to make it, cut back the amount of butter in the topping. I also didn't take my own picture because pudding cakes generally look like a gloppy mess, and this one wasn't any better.