Ella's Chocolate Pudding

I've named this recipe for my niece Ella. She's 8 months old now, and was only just eating solids when I left her 2 months ago, but I bet she'l l like it when she grows up!

I first came across a variant of this recipe using melted butter in a Red Cross fundraising cookbook. It had been contributed by the Wizard of Christchurch.

This recipe is vegan (but tastes just as good!) Quantities for 8-10 first(quantities for 32-40 in brackets!).

1 cup is 250 mls (1/4 litre)
1 T is 1 Tablespoon, or 15 mls
1 t is 1 teaspoonful, or 5 ml

Ella's Chocolate Pudding

Whisk together the following dry ingredients
1 cup flour (4 cups)
3/4 cup caster sugar (3 cups)
1/4 cup cocoa (1 cup)
1 t salt (4 t)
1 t baking powder (4 t, or 1 greek sachet)

Make a well in the centre of the bowl and add

1/2 cup water (or milk if you aren't vegan) (2 cups)
2 T Sunflower oil or 30 grams melted butter (1/2 cup oil or 125 g meltedbutter)

Whisk to combine and place in one 20-25cm casserole dish, (two 30cm or a roasting dish)
Combine second dry ingredients
1/4 cup cocoa (1 cup)
1/2 - 3/4 cup brown or coffee sugar (2 to 3 cups)

Sprinkle evenly over the top of the pudding. It will look like quite a thick coating.

Measure 1 1/4 cups (5 cups) of hot water. Gently, gently pour onto the back of a spoon held just above the pudding. The rounded back of the spoon will splay the water out evenly over the pudding.

Bake in a moderate oven - 180 degrees celcius/350 F / yoga plus 4 o'clock for an hour.

The water on top will sink through and make a sauce. It tastes great hot, and even better cold the next morning (if there's any left!)

Yum yum yummy!