self-saucing chocolate pudding

One Friday morning, I had a craving for something sweet. Not enough to make something elaborate, but enough to dig out an old recipe for a chocolate pudding. This recipe was given to me in my uni days when I was a summer vacation student (similar to an intern) in South Australia. A fellow vac. student had this recipe from his grandmother and decided to make it for us to enjoy. Lucky us.

This recipe reminded me of a simpler time, when all I cared about was that summer job and the adventure that I was having in an exciting and unfamiliar place. It reminded me of going to the nearby beach, lolling about while watching dolphins frolicking with the neighbourhood kids. It reminded me of our trip to Port Lincoln for the tunarama festival. It reminded me of a simple Christmas lunch which was nothing extravagant but altogether thoughtful and gratifying. It reminded me of watching fireworks on a hot summer's new year. But most of all, it reminded of all the friends that I made.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Tips & tricks:

1. Try to adhere to the prescribed cooking time, I left mine too long in the oven and the chocolate sauce gellatinised. Though, it was still good eats!
2. This dessert is best served while it's still hot. But if you're fortunate enough to have any left-over, you can put them in the fridge. When you're ready to eat them, pop them in the microwave for max. 30 seconds.
3. When I saw the recipe, I thought it was going to be too sweet for my delicate palate so I bought some cream to balance it out. In the end, it really was not necessary as it wasn't sickly sweet as I thought it would be.
4. Please please please, for the love of all things sacred in this world, use full-cream milk! As long as you don't have this everyday, you can give in to one guilty pleasure every now and then, right?

Self-saucing Chocolate Pudding
by M. Arundell

Pudding ingredients:

• 2 tbsp butter
• ½ cup sugar
• 1½ cup milk
• 2 tbsp cocoa
• 1 cup self-raising flour
• a pinch of salt
• 1 egg, beaten

Topping ingredients:

• ½ cup sugar
• 1 tsp cocoa

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 175-180°C, if it's too cold, the sauce will not thicken and caramelise.
2. Melt the butter (in the pudding ingredients) in the microwave.
3. Use a pyrex bowl as your container. Whip together the melted butter and sugar (in the pudding ingredients), then add the rest of the pudding ingredients, starting with the egg, then flour, salt and cocoa. Stir to combine.
4. In another bowl, mix together the sugar and cocoa (in the topping ingredients). Sprinkle the topping mixture on top of the combined pudding ingredients.
5. Pour 1½ cup warm water into the mixture. DO NOT STIR.
6. Place the bowl in your oven's middle rack and bake for 40-50 minutes.