Recpie: Rich Chocolate Self Saucing Pudding

This is one of my tried and true recipes.  It is so easy and has not failed me once in the many many years I have been making it.  It was even a weekly occurrence at one stage when I was having dinner and ‘The OC’ dates with my cousins on Tuesday nights.  This recipe has all the makings of a winner.  One bowl, chocolate, delicious rich sauce that melts into the pudding to make it gooey, only takes twenty minutes to bake and you will always have the ingredients in your fridge.  Winner!  Given the winter months are upon us this recipe has been busted out a few times of late and it is definitely time for you all to give it a go.  My partner has even made it recently too. 

To prove how easy this one is - this picture is of one that my partner made recently.

Ingredients:
Pudding:
1 cup sifted Self Raising Flour

3/4 cup of caster sugar

2 tablespoon butter

3/4 cup of milk
1 egg

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

3 tablespoons of sifted cocoa powder

Sauce:

¾ cup of sugar

2 cups of boiling water.

1 tablespoon of sifted cocoa

Method:
Preheat convection oven to 180 degrees;
Pudding: Put flour, cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a bowl.  Add your vanilla essence, butter, egg and slowly add your milk whilst beating.  Beat with an electric mixer for a couple of minutes;
Put the pudding batter into a medium size oven proof dish;
Sauce:  Place the sugar and cocoa into a small bowl.  Add your boiling water to this mixture and stir until the sugar has dissolved;
Get a metal spoon and slowly pour the chocolate sauce mixture over the corner of pudding batter;
Bake in oven for twenty minutes.  It is ready when the pudding (cake) has risen to the top and the sauce has sunk to the bottom.  Place a knife in the middle of the pudding and poke through (just the cake section).  If it comes out clean it is done.

Tips:

• Make sure that you sift the cocoa so that you don’t have any lumps
• You don’t have to use electric beaters to mix the pudding batter, a wooden spoon or a whisk would work just as well however I prefer a lighter pudding so prefer to beat
• To avoid a very messy and sticky oven make sure you use a medium to large size bowl as the pudding will rise to the top (and double in size) and the sauce mixture will effectively boil and therefore will move up the dish quite a lot.  You could also place a oven tray underneath, just in case.
• Serve with vanilla ice cream when it is straight out of the oven.  So good!