Chocolate Self Saucing Pudding

I  doubled the recipe and cooked it in a deep single dish. The oven I was using was an old electric oven with a Fahrenheit scale, and the good word was that it was a slow cooker at the best of times, so I cranked it to the 450 deg setting. When putting the pudding together the sauce was poured over the top of the batter using the back of a spoon to gently break the flow over the batter. I only used about half of the doubled sauce mixture as I felt that there may have been too much given I was using a very deep dish and not the 4 separate smaller dishes.

I lost track of cooking time, but removed the pudding from the oven when the top was very firm to touch. I was a little concerned that it might not have been cooked but I didn’t want it to burn.

The first scoop from the corner looked delicious, but the sauce at the bottom was scarce…my fault I know…and moments latter some uncooked batter came oozing out of the centre of the pudding. Luckily there wasn’t a lot and perhaps an extra 5 or 10 minutes in the oven would have cooked it right through.

Served with a scoop of icecream, there were no complaints from the many who devoured this little gem. I will have to make it again soon to try and produce a more perfect pudding, with more sauce and cooked through. 

The problem I have found with self saucing puddings in the past is that the sauce is watery and heavy on the cocoa flavour. This sauce definitely didn’t suffer from that, though I did add a little extra brown sugar to the sauce before pouring over the batter.

UPDATE: The second try at this pudding resulted in a better cooked masterpiece thanks to a more reliable oven and I added more of the sauce mixture…but still not the entire two and a half cups (doubled recipe)…and there was more sauce than last time but still not really enough for my liking. Looks like a third try is on the cards.

Ingredients: basic
Method: Easy
Rating: 4 Stars

Ingredients:
1 Cup self-raising flour
3/4 Cup castor sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup milk
30g butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/4 cup cocoa, extra
1 1/4 cups hot water

Method:
1. Sift flour, sugar and cocoa into medium bowl. Make well in centre, use wooden spoon to gradually stir in combined milk and butter, beat until smooth. Pour into 4 ovenproof dishes (3/4 cup capacity).

2. Combine brown sugar and sifted extra cocoa in jug, gradually stir in hot water, stir until smooth. Gently pour the mixture evenly over the top of each pudding, place dishes onto an oven tray to make them easy to handle. Bake in moderate oven 35 minutes or until puddings have risen to the top of the dishes and are firm to touch. Dust with a little sifter icing sugar just before serving, if desired (serves 4).

If you want to make this pudding in a single dish, you will need a dish of 4 cup capacity, and it will take about 50 minutes to cook.