Mocha Self-Saucing Pudding.

Oh hiiii, thanks for visiting. I like it when people give me recipes, or direct me to them. Sometimes I like it because it saves me a decision; decision making is not my strong point, in fact I could probably win an award for being bad at it. Sometimes I like it because it means I make something I probably wouldn't have otherwise; contributing to the achievement of my ultimate goal...to have made eeeeveeeerything.

And sometimes I like it because of how it makes me feel like someone knows me a bit and has thought of me, in my favourite context, when I'm not even there. More than that they go to the effort of remembering the thought and passing it on to me.

This pud is a product of the latter. A lovely lady that I work with tore out a page of The Sunday Times supplement. Briiiiiiiiill, both for the recipe and the fact that I'm not quite high brow enough to buy such words every week, but LOVE reading the supplements (aaaaaand it meant that I got to indulge my Giles Coren fetish by reading half of his review- it was enough). 

This sort of pud is often called a self-saucing one, because, well eeer, it self-sauces.  But when my friend was telling me about the recipe she kept forgetting the phrase and went with 'self-healing, self-loving, self-whatever.....'. So here we are. Self-healing, self-saucing Mocha Pudding, pretty accurate I'd say. With Love and Cake.

Mocha Self-Saucing Pudding

Adapted from a Donna Hay recipe in The Sunday Times

A few notes:

• This recipe seems aaaaaall wrong...doing it in a pan, pouring batter onto liquid. You will think "really??", but just do it as I tell you, and it will come good.
• I used instant espresso powder which has a finer texture and stronger taste that regular instant coffee, but if that's what you have you could push it through a sieve or bash it up in a pestle and mortar to make it finer.

Serves 4-6 

You will need

a 15-18cm ovenproof sauce/frying pan

125ml milk

35g butter, melted

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

150g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp instant espresso powder

30g ground almonds

45g + 90g soft brown sugar

1 1/2 tbsp cocoa

250ml water

• First job, preheat your oven to 180°c.
• Now whisk together the milk, melted butter, egg and vanilla extract in a medium bowl or measuring jug.
• Then stir together the flour, baking powder, espresso powder, ground almonds and 45g brown sugar in a large bowl.
• Pour the milky mix over the flour mix and whisk to nicely combine. Set aside for a mo.
• Put the 90g of sugar, cocoa and water in your sauce/frying pan and stir over a medium heat so the sugar dissolves, then slowly bring to the boil.
• Then take the pan off the heat and pour the coffee-ee batter over the top.
• Pop the pan in the oven for 20ish minutes, until the sponge is firm in the centre.
• Mmmmm serve with cream.