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
- Turn the oven on to 180oC/160oC fan.
- Mix together all the dry ingredients except the chocolate chunks.
- Mix the wet ingredients together.
- 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.
- 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.
- Cook for 30 mins then serve immediately.
- 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/