Fresh from the garden to the kitchen

The first self-saucing chocolate pudding I tried had a strong alcoholic overtone. I decided it was probably less suitable for a group of 14 college students from a US college with a strong christian affiliation. It had been so easy to do the first one, that I looked for an alternative recipe, without alcohol for the second.

Chocolate and orange is such a classic combination. You really can’t go far wrong with this one. For me it brings back so many memories of Christmas. The Terry’s chocolate orange was always one of the last items at the bottom of the stocking (along with the obligatory piece of fruit).

For this recipe, the only issue, for me, is that it doesn’t really have any Scottish links. Ideally I wanted to keep the recipe as local as possible. Fortunately in recent years there has been quite an explosion of Scottish chocolatiers – though most don’t use orange flavours in their chocolate. There are quite a few other options on the chocolate front from gin & tonic to Haggis and Pepper, which I’m not sure I’d substitute for the orange flavour in this recipe!

There are no photos of this particular pudding as once I put it on the table, it didn’t last long with a group of 15 from Calvin College, Michigan.

Ingredients

100g butter

250g self-raising flour

140g cater sugar

50g cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

zest and juice of one orange

3 eggs

150ml milk

100g orange milk chocolate, chopped into chunks

single cream or ice cream to serve

For the sauce

200g light muscavado sugar

25g cocoa

Method

1. Turn the oven on to 180oC/160oC fan.
2. Mix together all the dry ingredients except the chocolate chunks.
3. Mix the wet ingredients together.
4. Add two sets of ingredients to each other, preferably wet to dry so there is less chance of flour etc powdering up into clouds all over the kitchen. Stir the ingredients together until you have a smooth paste. Stir in the chocolate chunks.
5. Add 300ml of boiling water from the kettle to the sauce ingredients. Mix together to make a smooth sauce then pour over the sponge mix. It will look a wee bit strange to begin with but don’t worry. It’ll cook up to a fabulous chocolate sponge with a lovely gooey sauce at the bottom.
6. Cook for 30 mins then serve immediately.
7. Serve with ice cream or single cream.

Useful links:

Terry’s Chocolate Orange – http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/tesco-price-comparison/Boxed_Chocolates/Terrys_Chocolate_Orange_Milk_175g.html

Scottish Chocolatiers producing bars of chocolate

CocoaMountain- http://www.cocoamountain.co.uk/chocolate-shards-and-bars/

Charlotte Flower Chocolate – http://charlotte-flower-chocolates.mybigcommerce.com/bars/

Iain Burnett – the Highland Chocolatier –https://www.highlandchocolatier.com/chocolate-bars-c-8

Chocolate Tree – http://www.choctree.co.uk/product-category/organic-certified-chocolate-bars/

Coco- http://www.cocochocolate.co.uk/

Oban Chocolate Company –http://www.obanchocolate.net/acatalog/copy_of_Artisan_Bars.html

Luxury handmade individual chocolates and other luxuries

Lime Tree Larder – http://www.limetreelarder.co.uk/

The Highland Truffle Company

Stuart and Swan – bespoke chocolatiers –http://www.stuartandswan.co.uk/retail-collection/

Hot Chocolates – http://www.hotchocolates.biz/

Thinking Chocolate – http://thinkingchocolate.wix.com/new-holding-page-tc

Cocoa Black – http://www.cocoablack.com/shop

USEFUL LINKS

BBC Good Food recipes – http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes

Cairngorms Food and Drink Trail – http://visitcairngorms.com/foodtrails

Taste our Best – http://www.visitscotland.com/about/food-drink/taste-our-best

Scotland Food and Drink network – http://www.scotlandfoodanddrink.org/

Taste of Scotland – http://www.taste-of-scotland.com/