Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding

Yesterday evening we invited Simon, one of Jeff's colleagues, to join us for supper. I fixed lasagne (recipe here)... the first I've ever made, and it turned out delicious.

(This is a couple pieces reheated for tonight's supper.)

For dessert I baked a chocolate cake-pudding using a recipe I cut out months ago and hadn't gotten around to making. It's a Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding - think chocolate cake meets chocolate brownie meets chocolate sauce... yeah, it was VERY chocolaty and rich! The best thing was, it's delicious and quick to throw together.


Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding
Source: Sainsbury's Magazine, by Nigel Slater (I really love his simple, yet creative cooking style!)

Ingredients
150g self-raising flour
2 lightly heaped Tbsp cocoa powder
45g ground almonds
200g light muscovado (raw) sugar
75g dark chocolate, finely chopped
200ml milk
25g melted butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 large egg

For the sauce:
175g golden caster sugar
75g cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, fan 160 degrees C. Lightly butter a heatproof oval baking dish, about 1.5 litre capacity. Put the flour, cocoa, almonds, muscovado sugar and chocolate in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the milk, butter, vanilla extract and egg with a whisk. Pour the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and stir thoroughly. Pour into the buttered dish.

For the sauce, mix together the golden caster sugar with the cocoa powder and scatter over the pudding (like you would with a crumble). Pour 500ml freshly boiled, but not actually boiling, water into the dish - yes, on top of the sugar and cocoa powder. Do not mix it in... just let it be.

Bake for 40 minutes until the top is springy. Take out of the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes (don't skip this resting, it is essential). Serve with cream.