Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding

Dietary Requirements:    

Items Needed

• Mixing bowl

• Measuring cups (or some other measuring device, just convert cup measurements to e.g. mL)

• Spoon and knife

• Some kind of cake dish (for reference, I use a 2L casserole dish like this ( product link) but also often double the recipe)

• Oven

• Kettle or other way to produce boiling water

• Microwave or other way to melt butter

• (Optional) Sifter

Ingredients

Instructions

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 160deg
2. Dry mix SF, cocoa, and sugar. Work out any lumps in the cocoa (you don’t want lumps of cocoa in the baked cake)
3. Make a well in the centre
4. Add butter and milk (and egg, if desired)
5. Mix well
6. Pour into dish to 1/2 — 2/3 height
7. Sit aside

Sauce

1. Mix boiling water, sugar, and cocoa. Again, try to get the lumps out of the sauce.
2. Holding a spoon over the cake mixture, with the back facing up, pour your sauce onto the back of the spoon and over the surface of the cake. We do this instead of pouring directly onto the cake surface to prevent churning and mixing the cake + sauce. We just want the sauce to sit on top.

Bake

1. Place the dish (with batter + sauce in it) onto a tray and place both in the oven. The tray is just for the worst case scenario where something overflows, so you don’t have to clean the oven floor.
2. Bake at 160deg C for 30 minutes or until sauce rises around the edges

Baking tips

• To check if the pudding is done, tap the top with a knife. If it’s all wobbly then it’s still ~liquid under the surface. If it doesn’t wobble, stab it with the knife. If the knife comes out clean then it’s done.
• If you want to double the recipe, the time and temperature depends on depth more than anything
  • If you increase the depth, e.g. by pouring 2x the batter into the original size dish, then turn down the heat a bit and bake it a little longer. This prevents the top and sides from burning.
  • As a general guide, you can expect twice the amount of batter to take ~50 minutes, but it will depend on dish size and oven.
• If you’re unsure of the time needed, cook for the originally specified length (30 minutes) and then check at 5-10 minute intervals. Don’t leave it unattended, just to be safe.