Comfort food.
That was the first thing I thought of when pondering this week’s WANAfriday blogging theme: Post your favourite recipe — and perhaps a story to go with it!
Yeah, all right, I proposed the theme. Because I’ve had a really tough week. And if someone put a piping hot bowl of chocolate pudding (with lashings of cream) in front of me right now, I’d hug them. And ask for seconds.
Chocolate pudding was always the favourite in our house when I was growing up. It was often served up for birthday dinners when we were young. As my siblings and I grew older and greedier, we’d triple the recipe and cook it in a massive corningware dish to make sure there was always enough for everyone to have seconds — and even thirds the following day if we were lucky.
Our family recipe is a fairly standard one, and very easy. It resides to this day in “Auntie Florence’s cookbook”, which was actually a booklet compiled as a fundraiser about 40 years ago. The chocolate pudding page is stained and battered and the modestly typed recipe is marked up with various amendments and suggestions. I photo-copied it in all its chocolate-smeared glory for my recipe collection.
This is how I make it.
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Chocolate Pudding
Mix the following dry ingredients in the dish you intend to cook it in (such as a large Corningware casserole dish).
- 1 cup self-raising flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 (heaped) tablespoons of cocoa
To this dry mix, add:
- 2 tablespoons of butter or margarine, melted. (I use a 1-litre jug in the microwave, and reuse it later for the sauce…)
- 1/2 cup milk
- a dash of vanilla essence
and mix in the dish using a wooden spoon (or equivalent).
For the sauce, melt an additional 1/4 cup (I do about 4 tablespoons) of butter or margarine in a jug (~1 litre capacity).
Add 3/4 cup brown sugar (approx 5 heaped tablespoons) into the melted butter and mix until dissolved. (NOTE – must be brown sugar, not any other type. Some recipes may instead use cocoa with some sugar to sweeten.)
Add 1-1/4 cups boiling water to the melted butter/sugar mixture. (NOTE: I often make more sauce than this, because the more sauce the better!)
Pour the liquid sauce gently over the pudding mixture in the dish and put straight into preheated oven at 180C (350F) for about 45 minutes.
The pudding will have a sauce underneath it when cooked.
This recipe serves approximately 4 people. (As I mentioned, double the recipe for pure indulgence.) I think it’s best served with cream.
Enjoy!
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I’ll share the links of other wanafriday recipe participants as they come to hand. To join in, simply write a post sharing one of your favourite recipes and tweet to #wanafriday.
Janice Heck ~ Chocolate Dream Dessert
Cora Ramos ~ Recipe for Murder
Kim Griffin ~ Crock pot meatballs
Liv Rancourt ~ Recipe for creative success
Tami Clayton ~ Moroccan white bean soup
Seth Swanson ~ Recipe for Awesomesauce (pasta sauce)
E V Gregory 
My family self saucing chocolate pudding recipe (which I haven’t had for years since I had to give up wheat) is very similar, and I love it served with natural yoghurt, because the slightly sour yoghurt beautifully offsets the rich chocolate pudding … wanders off to experiment with gluten free chocolate pudding recipes …
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Yeah, I don’t mind it with natural yoghurt, but I still think I prefer the taste of cream – although yoghurt is of course a healthier alternative!
Good luck with finding a recipe you can eat…
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Ellen, I have never, ever, made real home-made pudding (*tsk *tsk). I have always made it using those little boxes of instant mix from the grocery store. I will definitely try your recipe. It has my mouth watering already…and got me going on my own favorite chocolate recipe (which, sadly, uses those little boxes of instant mix.) Oh well.
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I hope you enjoy it, Janice! It’s very easy to make. Looking forward to checking yours out too.
(Let me know how you go…)
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Sounds delicious and I bet my kids would love it. I think I have all the ingredients on hand, so I may be making it this weekend!
Passed down recipes are so special 🙂 Glad you shared it.
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It is delicious – and really easy and quick to make. If you do happen to cook it up I hope you enjoy! (And let me know what you think!)
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OMG I’m so going to try this! My kids will think I’m Mother Of The Year!! Thanks for posting.
😉
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I hope you all enjoy it!
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That really sounds yummy. Will have to try that recipe.
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Hope you enjoy it – let me know what you think!
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This sounds heavenly! I’ve made homemade pudding before, but on the stove. And with a little bourbon. 😉 I will be trying out this recipe for sure.
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Yeah, I love steamed puddings too! Mmmmm. This oven pudding is easier to make and fairly foolproof. Tweak as you desire (particularly the amounts of cocoa). 😉
On the subject of bourbon, I have no comment!
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Going to try it out on the parents, husband and family tonight! Although Matthew already has a recipe that is fairly popular. I reckon yours looks nicer!! Loved reading all your blogs
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Hi – lovely to hear from you! Look forward to hearing how the pudding turns out. 🙂
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It was great, very choclatety, with lots of sauce. Super easy to make. Possibly a little rich after a roast lamb dinner. Will need to get out and do some exercise today.
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One word: YUM! 😀
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Oh yes, mouth watering again…
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