Henry’s Chocolate Pudding

Henry’s Chocolate Pudding

I’ve done chocolate puddings. I’ve done so many. This is the best by miles

A lot of people like chocolate, and it nearly always features in our pudding and/or cake menu at the farm. But have you ever enjoyed a chocolate pudding invented by a Welsh Farm Cat for a Steiff Bear? Well, if you cook this recipe, you will be able to answer yes to that! Because this particular pudding was created and named by our very own Bertie Cat, especially for his kindhearted friend Henry. Henry is a gentle Steiff bear who, amongst other things, loves chocolate and quiet places.

Bertie’s scrumptious chocfest combines ideas from Nigella Lawson and Nigel Slater with his own culinary inspiration. It was thoroughly tested by humans at our November 2011 Recharge, Refocus, Relax & Eat Chocolate Pudding weekend, where the verdict was: “Oooooooooooooooooooooooh!!!!!”

Henry’s Chocolate Pudding (Feeds about 12 bears)

200g Self Raising Flour
200g Soft Dark Brown Sugar
75g Dark Chocolate (the 70% cocoa kind) plus a little bit more for luck. (If you have some chocolate with 80% or more cocoa, add a bit of that)
2 tablespoons Cocoa
200ml full fat milk
25g butter
2 large oranges
Vanilla essence
1 egg

175g caster sugar (superfine sugar)
75g cocoa powder
500ml boiling water

This is a great pudding to share. You can make it in little pudding bowls (share one between two) or big pudding bowls or something in between. Use whatever you’ve got, just make sure that the bowl(s) are not full to the brim when they go into the oven as the pudding rises and hubbles and bubbles a bit.

Turn your oven on to 180C, or gaze lovingly at your Aga.

Lightly butter your pudding bowl(s). Stand the pudding bowls in a tray because although we said don’t fill them to the brim, you just never know what might happen once the little imps are in the oven.

Now for the ingredients. You’ll need three mixing bowls to mix up your pudding:

First Mixing Bowl (Dry Stuff) Break up your chocolate into small pieces and put into the bowl together with the flour, brown sugar, and cocoa. Add the zest of both of the oranges – use a grater or a lemon zester thingy.

Second Mixing Bowl (wet stuff) In your second bowl, whisk up the egg, milk and a few drops of vanilla essence. A hand whisk is fine for this, you just want them reasonably blended together. Gently melt the butter in a saucepan and whisk that into the milk and egg mixture too.

In the Third Mixing Bowl (Wow! A three bowl pudding!!) measure out your caster sugar and cocoa powder, and mix it evenly together. Put it ready to sprinkle over the puddings – this is going to become the chocolate sauce.

When you’ve got everything ready and the oven’s hot, pour the milky mixture into the flour and chocolate bowl and mix it all up. Spoon it immediately into the buttered pudding bowl(s), leaving them not much more than half full.

Sprinkle the dry cocoa/sugar mix over the top of each pudding bowl. Then finally, pour a total of 500ml of recently boiled water over the top of your puddings (share this amount between the bowls if you are using more than one). At this point your puddings will look a MESS and it doesn’t matter because they’ll do something clever in the oven.

Pop them straight in the oven and bake at 180C for about 40 minutes, or in the Aga roasting oven with cold shelf for 30 minutes and finish in the simmering oven. They’re done when the sponge is springy in the middle.

LEAVE the puddings to settle for 10 minutes before serving, sprinkled with a little icing sugar, maybe some more slivers of orange peel and some nice cream.

Chef’s Tip: Next day, go for a nice walk. In fact several walks might be both wise and rather lovely.

This and other puddings are available on our Welsh Mountain Retreat holidays, where you can recharge, refocus and relax, and enjoy plenty of home cooked meals, cakes and puddings too.

Comments from our Guests about Henry’s Chocolate Pudding:

I’ve done chocolate … this is seriously good

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Divine. That’s medicinal. That’s a happy pudding.

Off the scale…

The most comforting chocolate pud ever. It reaches the parts other puds don’t reach

About Henry

Henry can be found on Twitter @henryandfriends, and on www.henryandfriends.co.uk

He has written a wonderful book called, “Welcom to my werld” in which he introduces us to his friends and daily life.

Henry lives with his friends Edward, Hamish, Cedric and others on the south coast of England.

You can join his Keepfits class and his choir on Twitter too!
 
 

About Bertie

Bertie the farm cat is also on Twitter @bertie_cat and writes occasionally up on www.more-to.org/berties-page

Bertie purrs a lot, enjoys naps, relaxing mountains walks and gazing at the peaceful views. He encourages others to do the same, and bring him tuna whilst they’re at it.

This is the first recipe he has posted, and he thinks he’ll do more if people like it.