Gooey Chocolate Pudding

I haven’t had the chance to bake anything all week, so come Thursday night, I was craving a proper homemade chocolate (had to be chocolate :P) dessert!  I had a quick look through some recipes and came across one for a chocolate pudding that only took 15 minutes to bake, and even less time to make! Perfect!

The recipe originally called for all dark chocolate but I tend to personally find too much dark chocolate is really bitter so I used part milk chocolate to help balance this out. I also used ground almonds instead of pecans as stated in the original recipe as that’s all I had in my cupboard, but you can use any type of nuts you want.  I’m sure hazelnuts would taste really lovely with this!

The melted chocolate has to be left to cool slightly before the egg, which has to beaten first, is mixed in. Once the rest of the ingredients are added, it will look a bit gloopy in texture, but still be fairly runny.  The pinch of salt is optional as it isn’t in the recipe, but I heard it helps intensify the chocolatey flavour so thought it wouldn’t hurt to put in.

Once out the oven, the puddings have a lovely lightly crisp top on the outside and a soft melt-in-the mouth gooey centre.  The recipe makes 2, but can easily be doubled, and put in the fridge a day ahead of when needed.  They are very rich so best served with cream or ice cream!

Ingredients:

50g butter, plus extra for greasing

cocoa powder for dusting

100g bar dark chocolate, melted

50g milk chocolate, melted

1 egg, beaten

2 tbsp plain flour

2 tbsp ground almonds

1 tbsp golden caster sugar

pinch of salt

Method:

- heat oven to 220C

- butter 2 individual pudding basins (about 200ml capacity) and then dust generously with cocoa powder

- melt the chocolate with the butter in a bowl over simmering water and stir until smooth

- gradually stir in the egg, flour, nuts, sugar and a pinch of salt, and beat gently until everything is combined but still runny

- divide the mixture between the pudding basins and bake for 15 mins (or 18 mins if chilled)

- leave to cool for a few minutes before turning out onto small plates